Review: Kat Edmonson - The Big Picture
By Travis Boswell, Staff Writer
[Sony Masterworks; 2014]
Rating: 6.5/10
Key Tracks: “Rainy Day Woman,” “Oh My Love”
Even though she's labeled her music definitively, Kat Edmonson has gone far beyond her self-proclaimed “vintage pop” genre. The Big Picture has more modern compositions than her previous albums, but Edmonson's voice ties all of the different sounds together.
Kat Edmonson was initially noticed singing jazz standards alongside her own original recordings and brings that genre to the forefront immediately. Jazz songs “Rainy Day Woman” and “You Said Enough” are early highlights, mostly because they give Edmonson some space to breathe. She's at her best in these songs because she has plenty of time to improvise and lengthen some words, letting them linger in the air. Even with a loose structure, both songs have excellent hooks and are concise.
“Oh My Love” is a stunning acoustic guitar driven ballad that could be one of her best songs. On the opposite end is “Avion,” a pop rock song that never finds its footing. In “Avion,” Edmonson is competing with the band for attention, which should never be the case. She seems rushed to get her lyrics out; the best songs on this album contain her vocals are the main focus.
“You Can't Break My Heart” is similarly overproduced, in which the string section competes with Edmonson too much. Finally, “Till We Start To Kiss” is awkwardly slotted into the album and sounds so much like a commercial for a Hawaiian vacation package that it borders on parody.
Even when her vocals don't mesh with the production, the lyrics of The Big Picture are consistently personal on every track. Edmonson has writing credits for 11 songs of the 12 song album and it shows. It's an album about love, but not just the starry-eyed romantic parts. “Crying” covers a relationship falling apart due to mistrust and “Dark Cloud” is about an argument that might have permanently turned two partners against each other.
In the end, “Who's Counting” wraps up the narrative by saying no relationships are perfect, but small things can't break them up. “We try to be right, we try to be good, and we try to be strong / it's never enough, it's always too much and there's still something wrong / and yet in the meantime, we just keep moving along.”
The Big Picture is Edmonson's attempt to step outside of her usual roles and try something completely different. Her decision to write most of the songs on the album is a welcome change, but the production on a few of the songs doesn't fit. The instruments in “Avion” and “Till We Start To Kiss” don't suit Edmonson's voice and “You Can't Break My Heart” and “For Two” get tedious with little happening for long periods. However, Edmonson is still an excellent singer and her incomparable vocals make the album worth listening to through the low points.
