Kate Walsh’s new album, “Tim’s House,” defines beauty: no long-winded adjectives or poetic affectations necessary. Her second attempt following her 2003 debut, “Clocktower Park,” manifests her most intimate, personal qualms through beautifully composed songs.
Summing up or defining Kate Walsh is a scrupulous task. She gives her soul away valiantly to the public, asking for nothing in return; her efforts need not go unnoticed. But, she lacks the quirky lyrical ferocity of Kimya Dawson, the intrepid indie twinge of Jenny Lewis or the venerated, multitalented career of Joni Mitchell, and even the mature, folk-rock flavor of KT Tunstall if we’re just throwing out names.
All in all, a sense of reluctance overwhelms me: There’s a reluctance to hear more and a reluctance to completely cast out this newbie songstress.
The album oozes with so much purity, honesty and beauty that it’s almost too much, dominating the soft aura like an elderly woman’s perfume.
Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) put it best: “an ache in your soul is everybody’s goal,” an aspect of sensual song writing that Kate Walsh pins down effortlessly in “Your Song,” and “Is This It?”
Although the album lacks a definite draw for those connoisseurs searching for a diamond in the rough, Walsh’s soft and salient airiness can and will capture the heart with a song or even a simple phrase.
Bold comparisons to Joni Mitchell are clearly premature. Walsh is gifted but far from a multitasking legend.
When a Led Zeppelin-caliber band worships this South England belle in one of their songs, I suppose that comparison will hold more breadth. But that’s asking a bit much. All comparisons aside, this 20-something is, if hackneyed phrases are your forte, “destined for great things.”
Unfortunately, the album’s harbinger is a bland, sweeping acoustic guitar, which sets Walsh inconspicuously within the brood of female singer-songwriters looking to seduce big studio labels with the same old, crudely intimate jazz.
Detachment (Walsh had an extended stay in a creepy, U.K. backwoods log cabin with no TV or iPod) is healthy for any singer-songwriter to zero in on the ever-elusive “sound” they’ve been searching for. But, “Tim’s House” sounds like a contrived homage to a jerk boyfriend clashed with the poetic ramblings of an overly obsessive girlfriend.
Sound like a scene from the closing minute of a “Grey’s Anatomy” episode? Kate’s been there and done that, the definite point in each singer -songwriter’s life when the artist knows he or she has made it.
For those of you who wish to be instantaneously entertained or deeply moved by spiritual undertones, turn back now.
For those of you who (can) find bliss in beauty and have the patience to live vicariously through Kate Walsh, this is actually a good album. It’s funny how the simplest, most beautiful things perplex us the most.
