Shannon Wright – Let In The Light
Every album Shannon Wright releases is a chance for her to push a little further beyond the boundaries that contained her on the album before. This time, she turns her attention more fully to piano on a set of songs bristling with intensity.
There’s still plenty of guitar, and Wright is a first-rate player. But piano takes the lead on seven of these eleven tunes, and she demonstrates an ear for the unexpected with parts that are more than just simple vamping on chords. Minor-key classical-style trills chase her voice through “Steadfast And True”, and she plays a see-saw rhythm on “Defy This Love” that is both jaunty and foreboding, evoking an overripe decadence as she half commands, half pleads with a lover.
Wright’s voice is an emotional, dramatic instrument with a wide range of expression. She has been likened to Cat Power, and the piano chanteuse vibe here occasionally calls to mind Tori Amos, but neither comparison quite captures Wright.
She sighs her puzzlement on “You Baffle Me”, and digs into her lower register for a brassy, strident tone that vies for dominance with a propulsive guitar riff on “St. Pete”. She sounds weary and wistful on the spare piano ballad “Louise”, and cynical about her self-deceptions on the expansive “Everybody’s Got Their Own Part To Play”. Wright certainly has hers, and it’s one she takes on with consummate skill, and more than a little daring.