Lissie – In Sleep (Columbia)
4/5
By: Hayley Sleigh
On ‘In Sleep’, the tale of a lovesick woman who can only be with her ex-lover in her dreams, Lissie manages to be just as much poor lil’ country singer clinging to the memory of her man with transparent desperation as shimmying Motown songstress, defiantly and jubilantly fooling the public and making a sad song sound triumphant.
The bass is pure Motown – perhaps most reminiscent of The Temptations’ ‘My Girl’ - with a bouncing, swinging sixties rhythm which could have been ripped right out of The Burt Bacharach Collection (Dionne Warwick’s ‘Walk On By’, maybe?)
Illinois-born, California-based singer-songwriter Lissie is just as in control of the song, with its many would-be contradictory elements, as the lovelorn character she adopts is over the dream-world where she can be reunited with her lover. Her voice is a soothing roar with a strength and ferocity which manages to challenge the seeming helplessness of her lyrics: ‘I know that when the story ends, the one that's in my head/Well I'll be alone again/Why am I so terrified of waking’.
Artists in this article: Lissie
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