Published on May 21, 2001
Lorraine Ferro has discovered that recording a CD is much
cheaper than years of psychotherapy.
Her disc
Languishing In Turbulence deals with the ups and downs
(mostly downs) of relationships as only someone who has gone
through the emotional roller-coasters can. In the liner notes,
Ferro thanks “all [her] ex’s… [y]ou gave me the material for a
million hit songs.” Well, that might be stretching things a bit,
since very little on
Languishing In Turbulence approaches hit singles
territory.
In fact, this disc proves to be a little difficult to get into
at first – and it’s not because of the raw nerve endings that are
strewn throughout. Tracks like “Happy” and “Religion” just aren’t
the kind of grabbers that they need to be for a release like this,
trapping the listener with powerful hooks and messages and making
them want to listen to the entire CD to see if it can live up to
those early expectations. As they stand now, those “early
expectations” on the first listen or two of the first tracks ends
up being, “Big deal.”
Then again, it is those repeat listens that opens up some of the
messages that Ferro wants people to hear. Take the song “Religion,”
where Ferro seems to lash out at some Bible-beaters who put more in
ther faith than in the love of their family. Sample lyric: “In the
dark he sits alone / Thirsty as a dying rose / While your [sic]
ripping all your clothes grieving for Jerusalem”.
While there are glimmers of personal hope on
Languishing In Turbulence (“Happy,” “Open Door”), the bulk
of the songs deal with someone dealing with the emotional scars
life and relationships have to offer while discovering themselves
(“Be Kind To Me,” “Screaming & Laughing,” “Copycat”). But as
hard as Ferro tries to tell stories through her songs (and maybe
tries to exorcise some demons from her past), the music itself
never seems to click, and a lot of the power of these tracks is
left by the wayside. (To be fair, part of the problem could be with
co-writer Ava Parnass and producer/co-writer Teddy Kumpel.)
It’s not that baring one’s soul is a bad thing; musicians have
been doing that since the beginning of time. But in order for the
message to really be delivered in a powerful way, you need strong
songwriting to back it up. Ferro has the skills of the words, but
sadly,
Languishing In Turbulence suffers because it is missing the
strong songwriting. Put a better collection of music behind her,
and Ferro could well be the Carly Simon or Carole King of this
generation – but she isn’t there yet.