Diane Birch - Bible Belt
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I’m. . .in love with Diane Birch.
Okay, so maybe that takes it a little far, but there’s something about her that has never let me down. I came across her on a Facebook sidebar, telling me that if I liked A Fine Frenzy, I would love Diane Birch. I previewed her album and got a copy right away. Since then, between awkwardly running into and introducing myself to her in a club and showing her music to my manager, there’ve been no negative feelings.
The first word that comes to mind in Birch’s music is “crisp.” Her notes and vocals are high and clear without flipping up into a falsetto; it’s a full sound and easy to connect with. And it’s also an incredibly clean sound, wasting no time on daring backgrounds or intentionally off-beat vocals. While I’m always open to those, this isn’t a shoegaze record – it’s soul music, though and through.
And what else can be expected from an album called Bible Belt? I felt bad for saying it until someone else had the same reaction, but the title initially put me off completely. Bibles? I went to high school in a very, very small town, and have had enough of Bibles and Christian musicians to satisfy me for the rest of my life. Without something to get behind, it’s hard to love music with a mission like that.
But that’s beside the point.
The point is, I’m basically in love with Diane Birch, Bibles or otherwise. She’s come into the music business at a good time, debuting with this disc just this past May – we’ve got a healthy number of female singer-songwriters paving the way for each other, and either she or whomever discovered her did her a favor by getting her name in the mix when it got there.
I know that to an extent, these songs are crafted for me to like them. I’m supposed to be in love with Diane Birch. I’m supposed to like her clean tracks. This music is supposed to make me feel good and I’m supposed to feel like my friends could like it and give it to them.
But it’s goddamn good.
Diane Birch is dealing with a great amount of talent, and she knows it. I’m going to be listening to this album quite a bit over the course of the next year, because I didn’t familiarize myself with it nearly enough by the end of this month.
Still, it hops in at 7 of 7, and there’s a reason I didn’t stop at 6.
Cheers.
Links: Official Site • MySpace • Facebook • Twitter • Last.fm