Alice Smith

The holy soul revival of 2007 is in full swing, and the place is jumping. The UK's Amy Winehouse brought irrefutable chops center stage with Back to Black, New York's Sharon Jones continued the charge with her bombastic energy on 100 Days, 100 Nights, and now Alice Smith takes up the torch, radiating exuberance on her debut album, For Lovers, Dreamers & Me, re-released by Epic Records after a short initial run on BBE. Smith seems determined to leave her mark on the proceedings, starting things off with ferocious originality.

As she slides into the piano-driven opener, "Dream," Smith's voice is rich, and there's not an ounce of fear in the delivery. As she spits her phrases in rhyme-like chunks, you can hear the influence of hip-hop on her style, as well as aspects of funk, rock and Broadway music. The formula gels best on "Dream," but this voracious stylistic approach runs throughout, and distinguishes Smith's record from many an R&B outing.

Following on, the experimental "Woodstock" plunges into Cole Porter territory—with a twist. Anyone who's spent a night in the city that never sleeps can sympathize with the song's desire to get away from the hubbub of New York and regroup. The tune's jazz-age melody rocks wide open on the chorus, with a drumbeat like a flapper-ready "Blister in the Sun." There's even a water-gurgling fish chorus. It's a knockout start, which is why it's too bad it doesn't hold.

Somewhere along the way Smith pulls back on the theatrics in favor of more standard R&B, and the surprises fade. She belts the bluesy "Desert Song" with gusto, but it's nothing that hasn't been heard before. Elsewhere, a slow jam like "Secrets" wouldn't sound so tame if it didn't follow the hyper-creativity displayed on earlier tracks. Luckily, things end on an upswing with the easy, cruise-ship sway of "Love Endeavor." The Latin-tinged, lover's rock pulls from across genres, and that's what makes it fresh. The world doesn't need another paint by numbers R&B chanteuse, it needs artists—like Smith when she's at her best—that are willing to take chances.

—Chas Reynolds
10.30.07

Alice Smith has the voice of a soul singer: a four-octave range and remarkable control, versatility, and emotion. And yet, or maybe because of this, her songs hardly fall into the soul, or even neo-soul, category. Instead, they circle from rock to blues to pop to R&B to jazz, never settling fully into one before a new chord, a new phrase, or a new verse will change the feel completely. "Woodstock," for example, starts off with a soft organ and an India.Arie-esque guitar, then switches a funk groove for the chorus, then segues to the verse with the band quoting "Blister in the Sun," and yet somehow still works really, really well. In fact, the music and the production on all of For Lovers, Dreamers & Me are fantastic, intricate, and layered while still retaining individual instrumental subtleties (the plucked strings on "Fake Is the New Real," the forlorn trumpet in the chorus of "Desert Song"), adding the right amount of whimsy, ingenuity, passion, and technique to accent Smith's voice perfectly. Because it is her voice that makes her debut so compelling and fantastic. It's commanding, almost explosive in "New Religion"; it moves around in its lower register with grace and agility on "Love Endeavor"; it's sultry and sad in "Do I," suspended over high notes and sunk calmly around the bass as if it doesn't even notice where it is, what it's been doing. Yet clearly it's focused, and its movements are anything but arbitrary. Smith is more than aware of the power she houses in her chest and throat, and when long smooth tones don't do quite enough to convey the sadness or anger or passion or regret in her lyrics, she isn't afraid to spit or growl or slur if that's what it takes to get her point across. And so while overall For Lovers, Dreamers & Me may be positive and confident and even sentimental at times, there's the everyday human struggle, the pain of love, the falsity in contemporary society, within it as well. That added introspection makes it more than just a warm, thoughtful album; it also gives it an element of timelessness. It's an excellent record, from the harmonies to the instrumentation to the changes in dynamics and everything in between, an impressive debut from an impressive and talented musician. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide