SpinacHoney: Chosen

Spinachoney
Chosen
Toybox
2002-05-13

Roll over, spring. Summer’s just around the corner and that means it’s time to cue up the music that will define the year’s warmest season. Backyard barbecues, lazy days by the pool, Fourth of July celebrations, and of course plenty of tunes to go along with the partying and good times. So turn up your stereos and prepare yourself for the sound of . . . SpinacHoney.

Who? Right, SpinacHoney. Formerly known as Samantha Holmes, this UK folk-pop songstress has recently issued her debut album, Chosen, on the heels of her first release of last year, an introductory EP called Roundabout. She then did a little touring stint with The Albion Band in the fall. So here is Chosen with a very lazy end-of-a-summer’s-day feel flowing through every tune.

Is it good? It has glimmers of being good, yes. The opening “Happening Twice” and the second track, “It’s Over”, feature some interesting acoustic guitar arrangements, treated with bits spliced in backwards or put through an echo effect. But the simple truth about SpinacHoney and Holmes’ songs and voice is that there isn’t too much variety here. After you’ve played the first quarter of this disc, you’ve pretty much heard everything there is to hear.

Not that it’s necessarily bad. But there are only so many songs with the same sounding guitar playing the same chords over and over that can get you excited. Some bands can make a good career out of doing this kind of thing, but SpinacHoney is fairly limited in scope and sound. I’d hate to say this was due to the “folk” nature of the tunes, but in this case it just may be. Holmes has pretty much two or three musical ideas that she repeats for a total of 12 tracks that just aren’t very interesting to begin with.

And then there’s her voice. It’s one of those voices you’ll either love or hate. Raspy with not too much range, Holmes accompanies herself with her background vocals flitting about in a higher range (or at least an attempt at such) while her lead duties swagger about and remind one of late ’60s Mick Jagger in spots. She does the breathy delivery thing to make up for her singing limitations, but honestly it would be better if she just attempted to sing as her talk/swagger deliveries wear out quickly.

Then there’s the problem of not having much to say lyrically. Too often, Holmes repeats certain lines over and over; it feels as if she’s just trying to reach the three-minute mark. It happens in both “Kinda Girl” and “Seeing You” to such an excessive extent that you wonder if the songs wouldn’t have just been better hovering around two minutes or less. “Roundabout” is probably the tune that suffers the most from repetition, not to mention Holmes’ desperate vocal delivery that just doesn’t work at all here.

Musically, Chosen is pleasant, unobtrusive stuff. Though Holmes does tend to favor the same three or four chords in her songs, she’s a decent enough guitarist, and the rest of the band (featuring Kit Holmes on vocals and guitar, and Allan Greenwood on guitar and keyboards) has a tasty appeal to its sound. The album was produced by Simon Humphrey, who’s worked with such acts as ABBA, T. Rex, Culture Club, and The Beach Boys. His claim that “It’s probably one of the best and most cohesive debut albums I’ve worked on in years” seems sort of far-fetched, but such may be the case. SpinacHoney certainly doesn’t deliver anything here that is particularly earth shaking or terribly exciting.

For all of its troubles, Chosen is still good enough to put on and relax to sporadically. It makes decent background music when you don’t really care what you put on. It would have been better if the entire album played out as well as the first two songs promise it might, but Samantha Holmes has a way to go before she creates anything that will grab more than handful of listeners’ attentions.