RACHEL RIES – For You Only (2005)

I feel a bit sorry for an artist like Rachel Ries, operating as she does in a musical style that’s been really over-populated in the first decade of the 21^st Century. Those sensitive singer-songwriters are all over the place lately aren’t they? And some of them are just so bland, but somehow it seems the more mundane you are the better your chances of success. So what’s Rachel Ries got to do to get more attention? Her songs are really good and she can play them well, sing them like a natural and put together a really strong album like this but still nobody I know has even heard of her. What are you supposed to do when your medium is writing songs, singing them and playing them and you do all those things sublimely but you have to settle for a kind of marginal recognition? All the while a far lesser talent like Lady Gaga gets away with widely representing the new female music makers of our time. It’s almost as if she needs a gimmick, or perhaps she should just cover ‘Over The Rainbow’and license it out to an advert or something; a perfectly legitimate route for a lot of people. I do want to see her do something though simply because this is a record that I’ve lived with for nearly 12 months and I haven’t growing tired of it yet; there’s some really good songs on here.

I’ll confess now that I can sort of see the problem. When I first came across ‘For You Only’ and made a few rash judgements based on the ordinary looking cover shot, I did expect this to be quite a dull record. Rachel doesn’t really have any aspects to her image that aren’t plain likeable and pleasant; she doesn’t really have an edge. Once you know she’s good at this you can trust everything on her album will be worth a listen. Things never get too ponderous or meandering, a slower number is inevitably followed by something with a bit of pluck and bounce. The melodies are strong and the production pulls all the textures it can out of a couple of well played guitars, the occasional banjo or bit of light drumming. The song ‘We’ll All Be The Same’, has a slow moving strummed guitar over a lovely harmonium sound and really favourably evokes the sound of Elliott Smith. Walk down a wet street at night with this song in your headphones and you’ll experience a perfect symmetry of sound and setting. It is about as dark as Rachel gets on this album and easily stands out as an emotional high point. Then when the following tune ‘3am’ starts firing out almost aggressively thumped piano chords its clear there are more musical tricks up her sleeve should she need them. Fundamentally, I would strongly recommend this album just on the strength of the songwriting and performance. Both are above standard, they’re never remotely bland because music written and played so well never can be bland. That’s the thing about bland music, there’s nothing below the surface, no real substance or content. Here there’s content and quality in bundles, it’s just a shame that sometimes just being very good somehow isn’t enough to grab the attention you might deserve.

Essex Boy Rating: 7/10