Gem And I

Damn that Emm Gryner, she makes me fall for the same trick every time: songs written in styles I’d usually avoid like a particularly nasty medieval affliction involving pustules and boils, slowly becoming as essential to the daily routine as the first cup of tea. If Ms Gryner’s last album Goddess rehabilitated the lone-bird-and-her-piano-ballad template with a series of devastatingly bleak mid-winter threnodies, this time spring’s come round and she’s operating in an area that usually requires waders and asbestos suits to navigate: the ‘70s-ish AOR piano pop duet.
Here’s how it goes: The first couple of plays the listener finds himself wondering why he’s immersed himself in an aromatic bath of electric pianos and warm milky vocal tones. But before you know it those slow release melodies have started to take effect and you begin to divine the bittersweet lyrical undercurrents in gorgeous songs like ‘Boy With An Affliction’ and ‘The Death Of Me’. Then he registers the cast list of collaborators: Tom Dunn, Sara Quin, Justin Sullivan of New Model Army.
They used to call it entryism: harsh truths coated in sugar coated but soulful melodies. It’s as if Anne Sexton had written the words for a Carpenters album. The Ontario-born singer’s airs are impeccable. ‘If I Lose My Head’ is absolutely addictive – breezy Brian Wilson harmonic pop filtered through Brendan Benson’s winsome backwards-looking lens. And there’s a reprise of her masterpiece ‘Almighty Love’ with a cameo vocal from Joe Elliott that skirts Don Henley territory and still breaks your heart. ‘Gem And I’ deserves a Paul Thomas Anderson film all of its own.
Key Track: ‘If I Lose My Head’