PIETA BROWN - In The Cool

"Like an element of nature or a late night dream, Pieta Brown speaks from a place deep inside, choosing her words carefully, relying on subtle precision and poetry to keep her balance". That's how the press sheet for "In The Cool" puts it, and we don't doubt it for a second. Pieta Brown's music is certainly the expression of her most intimate and personal nature, of moods, feelings and sensations; life transposed into music. And recording for "One Little Indian" is no small feat, as the excellent Strays Don't Sleep can also attest.

The trouble is that Brown relies on a fairly classic folk-rock song structure, as if the '90s and the various singer-songwriters in the vein of Cat Power/PJ Harvey (to whom she's compared for her vocal style) had never happened. With no sonic framework that's even remotely original, let alone personal, the assessment inevitably shifts to the songs themselves. And even here there's little to get excited about; we can't spot any particularly brilliant moments, just a rehashing of idioms already spoken and heard on thousands of other records.

Recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis, "In The Cool" churns out, without a break, twelve ballads with an old-fashioned flavour, as old as rock itself, moving between folk leanings and slightly more aggressive touches. Among the latter, worth noting is the decent "4th Of July", a rounded pop song that fans of Aimee Mann will love. Also not bad are "Lonesome Songs" and "I Don't Want To Come Down", which draw on an American rock-popular imaginary dear to the likes of Petty and Mellencamp. Tons of quotation-mongering, music fit for the youth-oriented TV dramas so fashionable these days, or at best for a romantic drive down American highways with your girlfriend swooning over Sheryl Crow.

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30/04/2026