After the release of last year’s ‘Worn Me Down’ EP and some recent shows with the crème de la crème of serious easy listening: Damien Rice, David Gray and Sondre Lerche, the smoky and husky Rachel Yamagata releases the eagerly awaited ‘Happenstance’ album.
The beefed up, rocking by numbers re-take on EP show-stealer ‘Worn Me Down’ might gloriously disappoint – but aside from this one glaring error, ‘Happenstance’ still manages to offer moments of louche, drowsy soulfulness far surpassing the cutesy, insipid cocktail-lounge smoochery of Norah Jones or Katie Melua. Compared to these ‘Happenstance’ is pure class. ‘Be Be Your Own’ s dry ice-delivery, languid accordion and heart-melting cello riffs (picked right off Damien Rice’s ‘O’) recall a more cosmopolitan/European and less dust-road Sheryl Crow whilst ‘Paper Doll’ employs the snarling feistiness of Sharleen Spiteri as well as some positively gruelling bottle-neck guitar. It’s hardly Brian Eno, but ‘Happenstance’ manages to side-step the conventional as far as it can, given it’s big label, big dollar remit. ‘Letter Read’ proves Yamagata can move away effortlessly from the clanking lovelorn piano ballads, ‘Even So’ proves she can out soar and out grace even the surliest of troubadours like Rice and ‘I Want You’ proves she can provide big showtime quirky on demand too (as well as unpredictable time signatures).
Yes, time has moved on for Yamagata since her carefree days fronting the Chicago funk band ‘Bumpus’ – but if tracks like ‘Quiet’ and the slurry, gorgeous hidden track are anything to go by she’s certainly moving in the right direction.
The album may lack the consistency and prettiness of top-rating albums like ‘O’ but as a show-reel for Rachel’s vocal talents it just about suffices.