Lindsay Ferguson
Chameleon
Busted Flat Records
Another Classy Canadian Singer-Songwriter
I’m not up to speed with Lindsay Ferguson’s previous album; which makes this a difficult album to talk about.
Born in Bermuda and raised in Ontario, Canada Lindsay certainly has a really good singing voice and a very good way with words too.
My problem with CHAMELEON is that as the title suggests she keeps changing appearance to suit a variety of environments.
Untangle, which opens the record starts with an acoustic guitar and Lindsay crooning in a manner not too dissimilar from Melanie Safka; before instrument after instrument is layered onto the track ultimately distracting from the song itself and the delivery.
The title track is more or less soft-electronica with a Disco beat and halfway through a male voice cuts in and raps for no apparent reason.
Next song out of the traps is Bad As You; a nice angsty piece of Alt/Nu-Country with some cool crashing guitars and wailing harmonica as Ferguson gives her all in a restrained kind of way. More like this one please!
I really like the whistling that opens the reflective Country-Folk of Doors and Heartbeats; which follows and showcases the tones in Ferguson’s voice.
Bizarrely the next song Donald Og is a mystical Celtic Folk song in the style of Enya or Clannad. It’s certainly not an unpleasant track; but but like the title track Chameleon earlier jars with the Folk/Americana thread to the majority of tracks here; and especially Ships which follows it.
This is definitely my favourite song here; and in its own way quite outstanding in a Canadiacana kind of way.
In another twist my album closes with another version of Donald Og; although I can’t tell the difference at all. Perhaps I have a rogue copy?
As I said earlier Lindsay Ferguson certainly has an excellent voice and is a talented songwriter; but within 9 songs the album gives us three perhaps four different styles of popular music – including a Rap!
I haven’t a clue what to make of the mix; perhaps it’s aimed at the download generation who can cherry pick the songs they like for their – I-podograms.
http://www.lindsayferguson.com/
Released May 15th 2015
The Rocking Magpie 