le blog pastallconcerns

             Picking out the right title for a record must be a tricky business for a musician. As a matter of fact, the record’s title is, with the sleeve design and the band’s name, the first thing you are faced with when you browse racks in record shops: it provides the listener with a point of entry into the record’s musical universe, gives him some sort of a guideline to follow and a few hints as to what sort of music, tone or atmosphere can be expected. “Whatever they say I’m a princess”, the title of Paris-based duo Pollyanna’s first record released by French label Eglantine Record might sound at first like a puzzling and rather bold statement to make, and mislead one into expecting hystrionics from an over-self-confident diva, or the unrelenting resentful ramblings of some kind of riot grrrrls, willing to take their revenge on all the naysayers of the world.

            However this feeling is almost immediately belied by the subdued melancholy sleeve design of the record, as well as its contents. If anything, Isabelle Casier’s music is quietly, gently bittersweet, and both slightly shy and utterly modest. The band’s sound relies heavily on heavy folk/pop roots, and is embellished here and there by a few flourishes of cello, as in You Hold The World In Your Hand and Goodbye, or touches of brushed drums, electric guitar and charango – a small mexican guitar the sound of which reminds a lot of mandolin – played by David Lopez. All songs testify to the band’s obvious love of beautifully-crafted melodies – Frankenstein, Song For A Room – and cleverly-wrought, elegant and classy arrangements, which often bring quite a lot of depth and feeling to the songs, as in the very good opening track, Matador, or in The Narrow Door, where Isabelle Casier’s voice is doubled up by male vocals on the chorus, a contrivance which works wonders on a song that might have sounded at first as a bit bland. Isabelle Carier’s voice is on par with her lovely guitar playing, and her vocals are one of Pollyanna’s main assets: even though her voice sound rather self-assured and the songs rely a lot on her vocal melodies – as can be seen with the lovely Smiths-like chorus of Frankenstein -, she never sounds as if she were showing off or indulging in melodramatic, over-the-top singing exercises.

            The lyrics of the songs also belie the record’s title. Even though Isabelle Carier professes to “like it, to be naked and weak”, her lyrics strike the listener by their modesty and humbleness, and are far from being the overblown ramblings of a self-infatuated singer, or the hateful spiteful words of a revengeful mind. Quite the opposite, actually. Most of the songs give vent to the songwriter’s doubts and fears, and are snowed under with many questions - most of which are adressed to a loved one - the answer to which the singer doesn’t know. Like her songs, Isabelle Canier’s choice of subject matters also digs deep into the tradition of folk singers, as she tackles sometimes hackneyed topics such as unrequited love (Goodbye), longing for a loved one (Song For A Room) , lack of understanding (Matador, Across The River, The Narrow Door), or fear of rejection (Frankenstein). However run-off-the-mill these themes might seem at first, they are dealt with in a rather subtle way, and enhance the feeling of quiet humility and gentle melancholy that pervades the whole album.

            Therefore it is no wonder that, being the band of a woman singing sad lyrics over folk-inspired music, Pollyanna should have won comparisons to American singers like Shannon Wright or more particularly Cat Power, which doesn’t do Polyanna much justice, both because the French press tends to generally file any female singer/songwriter as yet another Cat Power sound-alike, and as it doesn’t acknowledge the band’s obvious though sometimes unsuccessful attempts at defining the outlines of their own musical idiosyncrasies. Even though some songs might slightly remind the listener of Chan Marshall’s work (Iron Man, Untitled), Pollyanna’s music is by no means as brazen, angry, wild, whimsical or dejected as Cat Power’s, and sounds more like that of Julie Doiron circa Broken Girl or Laura Veirs, without sounding as forlorn and mysterious as the former, or as ground-breaking and sonically innovative as the latter. And there is the rub: Polyanna’s blatant will to write and record meticulously-crafted lovely tunes and not to get over-melodramatic or over the top backlashes against the band on some of the songs, and can turn into sheer timorousity or timidity: some chords progressions are a bit predictable – as is the case, for example, in the chorus of Song For A Room, the best song in the record -, or verge on the border of MOR (Goodbye, In My Pocket, which sounds a little like Knocking On Heaven’s Door). Even though Pollyanna are quite good at building up tension, as is brilliantly shown in Matador, they never let go of it completely, which somehow defuses the potency of otherwise good songs Untitled or Across The River.

            Nevertheless, Pollyanna’s record is an overall solid piece of work, and those few flaws might have been foreseen by the band: after all, entitling one’s record “Whatever They Say I’m A Princess” is a good way to protect oneself from any kind of criticism, as well as an ironic counterpoint to the music and lyrics, which precisely tell quite the opposite. They stem from the band’s endearing will to compose and offer true, honest, listener-friendly music, and write lovely tunes that stick with and grow on you – which some of them undeniably do. On the cover of the record, a woman in a swimming suit stands on an empty sunny beach, staring at a quiet sea, as if she were summoning enough strength and courage to venture into it, which mirrors perfectly Polyanna’s own situation as a band: after having recorded a rather strong and comfortable collection of songs, thereby shaping their own, sensitive musical world, it is time for them to take more risks, explore it and extend its boundaries. Let’s just hope they won’t walk back and resume their sunbathing on a safer, more familiar ground.