Gemma Hayes - Night On My Side

Ranging from the hipster, electronically pungent single “Let a Good Thing Go” to the gospel-ish “My God,” Night On My Side seems more like a second-thought tangent to what Gemma Hayes originally wanted. The first half flaunts the thick bass, obsessively intricate Dave Fridmann style of mixing, while the second half is a comparatively empty four-track-type mix. While some albums have gradual shifts in ambience and genre, this one is a straight line cutting the album into two parts, as if Gemma Hayes couldn’t decide which style she preferred; coincidentally, the track listing on the CD booklet has a single space break between tracks one through six and seven through twelve. It’s a good method of separation for the two styles of writing, but the easy-to-love opening songs daunt the later ones. The question I ask isn’t whether it was intentional or not, but why frontload an album with insanely well-produced, charmingly upbeat songs and then flip 180 degrees to a bare guitar and vocal style? “All good things must change/ and I’ll fight it if I could/ all good things must change.” Well… perhaps Gemma Hayes was pushed into this situation by a label that felt she needed a step-up in tempo and production, or perhaps she thought she could hush up the personal songs by putting them at the end, who knows. Such things are not for us to know, thought it does cast an unpleasant shadow over what could have been one of the best female pop/rock albums of this year. Dave Fridmann may have only mixed a quarter of the songs (according to the liner notes) but his influence lingers throughout most of the album (for all you fanboys and fangirls). The later songs have a more personalized, somber approach, but lack the studio-punch and rounded-equalization. Gemma Hayes plays guitar, keyboards, sings as well as co-produces her music. She has a cautious style of writing, one that gives you enough to get in the door, but not enough to know what it looks like inside. It’s an imaginative album with a beautifully designed booklet as creative and mysterious as the music, which seems to be a rarity these days. “Today I ran for miles just to see what I was made of.” She’s a very talented musician with some clever lyrics and good taste in production; Gemma Hayes has enough sweetness to hit the mainstream but will probably settle with those types of people who care about music more than just a flashy beat and a catchy chorus. And as for the mid-album curve ball, it’ll grow on you. [www.gemmahayes.com]