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Gail Worley
My personal tastes mostly fall in the rock and roll domain, branching out to various genres such as classic hard rock, heavy metal, melodic industrial, power pop and singer/songwriters. So I'll be looking for and listening to artists whose music excites me and about which I feel inspired to write. Any criticism will be constructive in nature; meant to shine a light on an area where the performance could be improved. I have never been one to review a song I didn't care for, just for the purpose of ripping on it, and I don't plan to start now. Hopefully, my reviews will be fun to read and will turn people on to some cool new bands. You can email me at Rezpect@earthlink.net.
| Jen Porter |
| Jen Porter’s piano-driven, bluesy rock has a very distinctive 70’s art-prog sound. This is partly owed to the flute accompaniment on “How It Feels,” which always reminds me of Jethro Tull. Jen has a true Janis Joplin feel to her deep, soulful, very rocking voice; but you will also hear qualities of both Natalie Merchant and Tori Amos in her phrasing. “How It Feels” has a jazz swing to the beat because of her drummer’s time keeping on his hi-hat, and that adds a nice texture to this very appealing performance of a perfectly arranged song. And how can you find any fault with a woman who apparently held a crowd of 40,000 Detroit Pistons fans in rapt awe as she performed an acapella version of the National Anthem? She definitely has a voice with commercial appeal and a great band. Her songs may be a bit too good for the radio (i.e. too complex), but with more mainstream material (maybe working the Norah Jones vein) there’s no reason she couldn’t be huge. |
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