Mary Lou Lord

This 1998 album was Mary Lou Lord's first, although she had previously released several singles on the Kill Rock Stars label. The songs waver between adult-alternative folk and smart, fuzzy indie pop. While she throws in several Bevis Frond covers, the best track here might be Elizabeth Cotton's "Shake Sugaree."

Mary Lou Lord once told a little white lie in a song, and it has led to some wrong
impressions. In "His Indie World," the Boston-based singer/songwriter made gentle fun of
underground fan-boys with lists of obscure bands for vocabularies. In contrast, she
embraced "my Joni, my Nick, Neil and Bob," suggesting a classicist's – and a stereotypical
girl's – limited repertoire. In fact, Lord is as much a record nerd as any dude in a... More >

Only indie perverts would hyperventilate over Lord's breathy voice, which needs every booster jet mind can devise or money can buy. And only indie perverts would object to her long-aborning major-label debut, where she gets the help she needs. The production is Amy Rigby-style neotraditionalism, with Roger McGuinn rippling under one flowing surge just to mark the concept, and, overcoming her fondness for Nick Saloman (Bevis Frond, don't you know anything?), she makes the most of covers from Elizabeth Cotten to Freedy Johnston. Equally impressive, every once in a while she finds the gumption to eke out a song so winsomely conceived and solidly constructed it belongs in the canon she adores. Sometimes Saloman even helps--the cowritten lead track is a hummer worthy of Stuart Musgrove (Belle and Sebastian, don't you know anything at all?). (Grade - A-)