Charlotte Martin - In Parentheses

Along with Charlotte Martin’s In Parentheses, I received the obligatory bio, along with interviews with the self-described “partial goth” that highlighted Martin’s love of The Cure’s Disentigration, her stint as a former opera major at Eastern Illinois University and her crowning as Miss Illinois Teen USA in 1994. In a way, it’s too much information because Martin’s music told me all of this (in terms of mood) by the time I got to “Pretty Thing,” the third track on Martin’s 4 track EP. A pretty girl with a pretty voice wrote pretty songs. Surprised? There’s a certain depth to Martin’s music, such as the final track “Monster” reveals with talks of “putting ghosts to bed” and “am I woman because I’m scared to be a man?” But she soars Paula Cole with the fade-outs, the “oooh, what would I do” singy chorus and imploring that the “monster in her mouth has to scream.” No doubt, but when? Because there’s not much of a femme-growl from Martin, even when she decides to get “medieval on boy bands” (“In Parentheses”), and it’s disheartening, because she’s a hella-better lyricist than Avril, the current token youth edgy girl with an attitude. In Parentheses is a solid release with great musicality, great production, but there’s little truly earth-shattering, little truly jolting. To put it another way, when similarly talented piano women, Martin’s contemporaries in a sense, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos and Kate Bush get angry, you can feel their volcanic wrath; while Charlotte Martin’s anger feels more like an earnest match flare. [www.charlottemartin.com]