Allison Weiss
The Way She Likes It (allisonw.com)
Alison Weiss proclaims proudly that this music has been made by her, for her and her friends. That’s all fine and well, but why not just then restrict this to a few demos handed out amongst her closest social group? Why inflict it on the rest of the world?
One of the main problems here is that Weiss desperately wants to be Beth Orton. She certainly tries hard enough, making her voice as gravelly as she can, labouring her words and injecting an occasional dose of what she no doubt thinks is humour and irony. She also seems to want to be Sinead O’Connor at the same time, over-emoting every single syllable. But where O’Connor has that natural ability to make you empathise with her, Weiss just comes across as plain annoying. She certainly sounds very pleased with herself.
Judging by the sleeve notes and sounds on display here, this record could have come from what one might term “The Group Hug” genre of music making, where everyone supports everyone unto the last degree. Support is all fine and well but you need to be able to recognise someone’s faults as well as their triumphs. That, sadly, just doesn’t happen here.
Gordon Neil
