Noize Makes Enemies review the Alela Diane album "To Be Still"
Alela Diane is another singer/songwriter from the folk genre. There seems to be hundreds of these artists, usually plaguing open mic nights, Diane doesn’t really stand head and shoulders above the rest but “To Be Still” has its moments that make her a little more interesting than the majority of others.
Her voice, a key part of her signature sound, is a cross between folk, yodel and Alanis Morissette. There is no denying that she can sing very well but this style has been heard a lot before so it’s hard to make anything special of it. She plucks away coyly on an acoustic guitar which, whilst it works well, blends in too well because this formula is so clichéd.
Diane uses plenty of instruments to colour the album a bit more, including a pedal steel and a mandolin to name a couple. The best track of the album, White as Diamonds, uses soft violin playing that strokes and comforts the softest part of you. However, a lot of the songs on the album just mesh into one long medley due to them all sounding too similar. “Age Old Blues” has guest singer Michael Hurley and their voices work together as well as Jim Morrison and leather trousers. They don’t harmonise enough in the song though and when they do it is for fleeting moments before Hurley goes back to ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ before finally cutting out.
The album, as with most singer/songwriter albums, has a heavy melancholy to it which quickly gets tiresome. Even the lighter, happier songs have an air of melancholy around them. There is no denying the authenticity of the songs, each word sung, each note plucked, sounds genuine and heartfelt from the very depths of Alela and her musicians, whether they are melancholic or not.
This album is quite generic, although I can see it has a lot of potential for those who are really into the singer/songwriter folk scene. There’s nothing bad about this album, it’s just there isn’t much that makes it great.
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