Cheyenne Marie Mize: We Don’t Need

Cheyenne Marie Mize
We Don't Need
Roaring Colonel
2011-11-08

Garnering comparisons to Alela Diane and Hope Sandoval is no small feat and neither is dazzling the media. Neither is creating a cohesive record. It’s this last that Mize hasn’t yet achieved and this six-song collection is perhaps evidence of why – it never comfortably settles on a specific direction. The opening, percussion-driven track “Wishing Well” spotlights the artist’s voice and the range of her soulfulness; the following piece, “Call Me Beautiful”, is eerie, spacey, spooky, dark and sexy. However, the third piece, “Going Under”, goes straight for the pop jugular and Mize loses her one advantage – the sense of mystery she achieved with the record’s first beat. She regains her solid footing with “It Lingers” (a Neil Young-cum-Sandoval plod), though the closing “Back Around” leaves us wondering which world she’s really more comfortable with – the one of dark or the one of light. Let’s hope it’s the former.

RATING 3 / 10