Search - Maria Mckee :: High Dive

Puzzling

Jev | Milwaukee, WI | 05/07/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have been a fan of Maria McKee ever since Lone Justice released their debut in 1985. She has an incredible voice and is terribly overlooked by the mainstream. She probably doesn't care about that though; she'd rather follow her own worst pretentions. Life Is Sweet was an artistic triumph. High Dive tries to be even more adventurous but fails. Too many of these songs sound underdeveloped. The arrangements are all over the map and are unfocused. Maria sounds like she's at war with this record. It's hard to tell who's pulling who--if she's leading the music or vice versa...or both. The first half has some decent songs. I really like "To The Open Spaces" and her remake of "Life Is Sweet/Afterlife" is even better than on the previous album. "In Your Constellation" is another winner, but by the time of "Non Religious Binding" the disc ultimately collapes under its' own weight. I'm a big enough fan that despite the unevenness of this record, I'm willing to forgive her. I'll continue to listen to this record and be both fascintated and puzzled by it.
"

Mixed Bag

R. M. Ettinger | Cleveland Heights, OH USA | 04/30/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I love Maria McKee. I loved Lone Justice. But I am finding 'High Dive' to be a mixed bag as an overall disk. Some stuff is great. Some stuff is just ok. Some stuff, I plain skip over. McKee and her co-producer Akin seemed to have thrown a bunch of stuff to the wall to see what sticks.The opening track "To the Open Spaces" is great except for that damned whistling. It seems to be tuneless whistling and in all the wrong places during the song. It's horribly distracting. But I also really like "Be My Joy" and "In Your Constellation". "We Pair Off" is pretty good, but it could have ended about 1 minute before it actually does. It begins to break apart and ends badly.I love the title track - which continues the theme of "Life Is Sweet". The opening horns on the former track are almost reminiscent of a Burt Bacharach song. Horns play a bigger part in this album than I thought were needed and it's another thing I find distracting. On some songs though, they work ("Love Doesn't Love")."Love Doesn't Love" has got a good R&B vibe that McKee can pull off - but you can actually hear Annie Lennox really pulling it off. And that gets to a good point: McKee is an incredible songwriter, sometimes better than she is as a recording artist.'Life is Sweet' (the album, not the song on this disk - which I saw no reason to re-record, as it adds nothing to the superior original) ranks up there as one of my favorite albums - and I would have liked to see something similar from McKee. But you don't always get what you want.This isn't a bad album by any means. It just didn't meet my expectations. And who is to fault for that?"

It takes work, but it's worth it

jo | new england | 05/21/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've loved Maria McKee since I first heard her band, Lone Justice, back in the '80s. She has remained my favorite singer despite the fact that her albums are few and far between. Her voice is luminous, soaring, soulful and so expressive it just rips your heart out. You can hear the intelligence, humor and passion in her delivery, whether she's singing her own brand of "alt-country" or belting out songs that seem better suited to Broadway than to the pop charts.
Since she hasn't had an album in 7 years, I had high expectations for this new CD. On first listen, I was unimpressed. "Overproduced" and "faltering" were the two words that came to mind. If Maria were any other singer, I would have filed this CD away and never listened to it again. But, since this is Maria, and since "High Dive" meant so much to her as an artist, I decided to listen and listen until I heard something that I liked. After all, you don't give up on a classic book just because it's a little difficult to read, and you don't walk away in confusion when faced with a challenging painting. I view Maria as one of the most talented creative forces of our time. She isn't mainstream. She doesn't want to be. Her work deserves more than just a token listen. If you still don't like it after several tries, that's fine, but I've learned not to write her off so easily. This album, which I really didn't like much at first, has become one of my favorites.
1. To the Open Spaces---catchy, great summer-driving-with-the-windows-down song. Her voice sounds a little like Madonna's here! I'm not crazy about the whistling or the way her voice veers off-key a little, but for the most part, she is at her best here.

2/3. Life is Sweet/Afterlife---this is Maria's personal favorite of her own songs, and since it's no longer available on her now-out-of-print 3rd solo CD, she decided to re-record it. I'm glad she did. It's a beautiful, transcendent song that deserves to be heard by more people.

4. Be My Joy---She sounds sexy & funny here; starts out as a love song and builds in intensity until it's a tragicomic Stalker Girl tour de force. This is why she's called the Little Diva.

5. High Dive---I'm guessing this is autobiographical. The lyrics feed into the Maria Myth that she's a bit on the difficult side, but most artists are. I just wonder what she and her producer-husband were thinking with the Partridge Family-sounding background. Maria and a guitar, nothing else, would have worked better.

6. My Friend Foe---I hated this song at first. Now it's one of my favorites. I love the ending where Maria repeats "never gonna let you go" and harmonizes perfectly. Classic.

7. In Your Constellation---One of the immediately accessible songs; her voice is great here; this is pure magic, even with the overproduced everything-but-the-kitchen-sink effect at the end. The refrain is a little reminiscent of her earlier work but still fresh-sounding.
8. Love Doesn't Love---Sultry, jazzy, knocks you out when the background kicks in, I love it, but (like a lot of these songs) it goes on just a little too long. I'd rather be left wanting more than waiting for it to finally end.

9. We Pair Off---Takes a few listens before you appreciate the passionate vocals, which have a scary intensity almost like "Breathe" from Maria's first solo CD. Again, it goes on a minute too long.

10. No Gala---Simple, theatrical; reminds me of "Has He Got a Friend For Me," which Maria didn't even write but which added a touch of heartbreaking innocence to her first CD. I can hear "No Gala" being sung just before the last act in a Broadway play. Shows her voice to its best advantage, and seems shorter than the other songs. Pretty.

11. Non-Religious Building---Sounds like The Who. Those guitars! Maria does a fine job as a Rock Opera Diva but some of these lyrics are cringe-inducing. It's a good song, if you tune out the rhyming of "sodomy" and "lobotomy" (huh?) but I admire her for taking chances with something so different.

12. Something Similar---Take away the horns and this could be on the "Shelter" CD. It has that sweeping, kind of dated sound. Not that that's a bad thing. Goes on that extra minute, though.

13. From Our TV Teens to the Tomb---Obscure lyrics which seem too deeply personal to make sense to anyone but the writer; the song is dated and seems tacked-on. Not a bad song, but not an easy one to get into right away. By now, I like it, but I've heard it a few dozen times. Most people won't give it that much of a chance, and I don't blame them. I usually don't, either.


14. Worry Birds---Again, this song could be the lead character's solo in a Broadway show. Edgy lyrics, lovely production, and Maria's voice is amazing here.
The album's main downfalls: the tendency to add too much of everything rather than trusting the purity of Maria's voice; too many lyrics that just aren't universal and don't give us much of an actual story.
The album's highlights: Maria's voice; her wit and her willingness to take chances; the crazy beauty of "Be My Joy," the brilliant "Life is Sweet," "Worry Birds," the radio-friendly "To the Open Spaces" and "In Your Constellation" (although neither will probably get much airplay, radio being what it is), the rock-meets-Broadway feel to so many of the songs.

So yes, it does take a lot of work to appreciate this complex record, and fans who loved the old days of Lone Justice will most likely be disappointed that Maria's changed so much. Let's hope that some of them decide to change along with her (although I totally understand the devotion to the old songs---if Maria had turned out 50 minutes of nothing but "Panic Beach" I would have been just as happy), and let's hope she makes some new fans in the process. I think younger fans who wouldn't dream of listening to an alt-country goddess but who are just now starting to get into their parents' old Bowie or Who records will like this. Maria's still got it; she just shook it up a little.
"