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Album Details

• Artist: Holly Nelson
• Album: Leaving The Yard
• Label: Northern Records
• Year of Release: 2003
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2004-01-27

While I'm not the biggest female vocalist fan, I do appreciate a good one. Holly Nelson is one of those artists that have a lot of potential. Her songwriting is top notch and she easily integrates an old classic like Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" into her repertoire. The Petty song is indeed one of the highlights on Leaving the Yard but don't lose sight of tracks like "Masterpiece", one of the more inventive songs on the album with it's drum track and hard driving rhythm. It seems as though Holly suffers a bit from wanting to try everything. She focuses mainly on ballads like the impressive "Hey Ranger" but when you throw that next to "I Won't Back Down" you tend to have continuity problems. I do think her songwriting is some of the best out there right now and if she doesn't make it as an artist I'm sure that someone prominent will come along and get her to write one or two for them. One problem I have with Holly's voice is that it's not quite powerful enough, on record anyway. She gets rocking on "Easy" but the vocals don't punch through like I would imagine they should. Now, this might be a production flaw but her voice doesn't sound as strong as someone like Sheryl Crow or even Sarah McLachlan. When she sings her heart out on the Petty track you can hear what she is capable of. Now Nelson just needs to integrate that power into her other songs and people might take note.

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