From: Silent Uproar [url]
Date: December, 2005

Release Date: 11/29/05
Producer: Terami Hirsch
Manstyle Points: 2.4 / 5
Reviewed by: eden
Website: www.terami.com

Terami Hirsch's Entropy 29 sounds too much like a product of her influences. She thanks the obvious ones (Kate Bush, Tori Amos) and the less obvious (Bjork, Dawn McCarthy) and a few in between (Vienna Teng, Charlotte Martin). The softly tortured lyrics sung over fragile, moody melodies are what listeners would expect, but the album doesn't seem to reveal too much of Hirsch herself.

Hirsch comes across as a competent musician -- her skills on the piano have emotion and delicacy -- but too often she's reaching too hard for a spooky atmosphere that she doesn't achieve. Chorus of voices, like on "Little Light," and ambient background noises come across as too deliberate and not heartfelt. The substance of her music gets hidden and nearly lost by these affectations.

The songs that mostly showcase Hirsch's ability as a singer and a pianist tend to work better than the others. "Nothing Walks Away" has an honest vulnerability that isn't overshadowed by eerie effects. The lovely strength of her voice is apparent when she sings "I don't mind losing myself to something outside, but why can't I move on?" Songs like this give glimpses of the sort of artist Hirsch is capable of being.

There are not enough of those songs, though. The rest tend to follow the mold of "Anywhere but Here" with its overdramatic vocals, heavy-handed piano and nonsensical lyrics like "Caught in their mouth/ A rabbit whose luck has run out/ And when you scream/ Nothing comes out." Songs like this make the album get tiresome quickly.

Hirsch has talent -- that enough is apparent -- but she seems like an artist still looking for her own voice. Maybe she'll escape the ghosts of the musicians she admires, but for now, they tend to crowd her out of Entropy 29.