Night on My Side

by

Gemma Hayes

Edit

Finally the long awaited debut c.d. from Gemma Hayes has arrived. Considering all the hype about her music you could say she was on a bit of a hiding to nothng with this c.d. It's fairly rare that a debut c.d. from a promising young artist lives up to that pressure-and she's done it on this debut c.d. with loads to spare.

She was quite clever in using such a respected and in vogue producer as Mercury Rev man Dave Fridmann. But any comparisons to the music of Mercury Rev are pretty non-existent on this c.d. Her music drifts between angsty blues filled ballads to hard rocking tracks that bear a closer resemblance to a P.J. Harvey then anyone else I can put my finger on. The minute you hear the guitars on track 8 "Tear In My Side" and you'll know exactly what I mean. She also adds some excellent slightly off-kilter harmonies to this track. In fact her record collection must be full of excellent alt. rock favourites. The bass line from track 3 "Back Of My Hand" mimics almost perfectly the sort of sound you'd hear from Peter Hook on New Order songs. Some of her more mellow numbers have a real retro feel of female solo artists from the 60's and 70's. maybe in years to come this c.d. will rank up there with the finest offerings from a Joni of Carole! There is a slight alt/country feel to the sound of tracks like "Over And Over" and on the title track. The other slower tracks have a more acoustic feel to them-yet Fridmann produces enough interesting effects so as to not make this another chilled out overly mellow sound. There is a real cutting edge to all of her songs. Lyrically tracks like the 7 minute "I Wanna Stay" and track 6 "Ran For Miles" are really heartfelt and full of just enough angst so that they don't come across sounding all Alannis like. In fact behind the acoustic chords of the latter you can hear the excellent feint sounds of a guitar loading up and getting ready to blare out loudly. She keeps the listener constantly on edge waiting for some unexpected sound to change the mood of the song.

There are plenty of quick tempo tracks here to prove that Hayes can rock with the best of them. Credit must go to a very accomplished backing band-who sound quite tight but not over-produced and over-rehearsed. In fact my favourite tracks on the album are two of these up-tempo tracks;"Hanging Around" and the amazing "Let A Good Thing Go". The latter track if it's given any airplay on alternative radio will help this album become huge-it's amazing.

This c.d. has been album of the week/month in many music publications over in the U.K. and in Ireland. Gemma Hayes could well be the next female solo mega-star. Forget Norah Jones and buy this album!

Our fair Gemma has been remixed, remastered, re-sequenced, re-paced and re-photographed to near-oblivion on this abomination of a reissue. Her US record company took a big gamble on this ground-up rethink of the album, and the results fall short on nearly every level (well, some of the photos are nice, though you'd think even the braintrust at Astralwerks would figure out that Gemma is one lass who doesn't need the "artistic" soft-focus to look gorgeous.)

On this ill-conceived attempt to break Gemma in the US market three selections ("Day One," "Over And Over," even the title track!) from the brilliant original have been excised in favor of tracks from other works which, while quite good on their own terms, simply don't belong here. The bass - arguably the finest musicianship on the original disc - has been de-emphasized. "Let A Good Thing Go" has been sped up! And all along, little quirks that made the original such an organic-sounding triumph along the lines of Beth Orton's "Trailer Park" and Shea Seger's "The May Street Project" have been mixed and/or edited out.

Would someone with no acquaintance with the original be this dissatisifed? Perhaps not - but I challenge anyone who *is* to justify choosing this over the real thing. (Note: "What A Day" appears as an uncredited "bonus track" after the industry-standard pregnant pause at the end of track 12.)