REVIEW: Sarah McLachlan, Surfacing(Arista)
Naked. Bare. Honest.
All of these are phrases that can be used to describe the power and brutal soul of Sarah McLachlan. On her new, long-awaited release entitled Surfacing, McLachlan strips back a few more layers of her already exposed person to make herself even more available to us.
After her first two albums struggled to find their feet, McLachlan struck gold with 1994's Fumbling Toward Ecstasy. The mature, layered sound that McLachlan and producer Pierre Marchand mined on Ecstasy, is now heard widely (somebody please tell Paula Cole that the cowboys have all gone to listen to the song "Plenty" off of Ecstasy ) on the radio. Three years since the explosion of Ecstasy, McLachlan's zealous fans have been salivating for more.
Surfacing is more than a bone thrown to the masses; it marks a maturation and progression of the artist - from an album polished and shined to a blinding gleam (_Ecstasy) to an album stripped down to the bare essentials, as lean and mean as a 3-time Nascar champ. Surfacing finds McLachlan and Marchand scratching about close to MTV Unplugged territory, as song after song on Surfacing reveals acoustic guitars, basses, and pianos.
The first single off of Surfacing is also the first of the ten tracks. "Building a Mystery" is a buoyant yet weary tale of a man who can't quite get his life together. Even being one of the more energetic tracks on the disc, "Mystery" still contrains its energy, hardly rising louder than speaking tones. Vying with "Mystery" for speediest rhythm rights is the song "Sweet Surrender", which is probably closer to Ecstasy's style than anything else on Surfacing. Building off of a squealing electric guitar loop (that coincidentally sounds a heck of a lot like the new Oasis single, "D'You Know What I Mean"), "Surrender" drives forward with a toe-tapping tempo. "Black & White" has a dry hip-hop drum line under it, but the rest of the track is mainly synth swells and random electric guitar pops.
"Adia" is an apologetic ballad that has a Beatle-esque sound to it. "Adia" is a prime example of the jump McLachlan has made from Ecstasy to Surfacing, shoving the melody and instrumentation right into the listener's face. Similarly, on "Angel" McLachlan sings accompanied only by her piano and Barenaked Ladies' Jim Creeggan on upright bass. "Angel", partly inspired by the heroin inflicted death of Smashing Pumpkins' keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin, speaks from the point of view of an addict needing relief.
Other songs worth noting are "I Love You", a beautiful torch song about her devotion for somebody, possibly her newlywed husband, her drummer Ashwin Sood. "Full of Grace" starts off like an animated Disney theme before being overrun by harmonies and bongo drums. The final track, "Last Dance", is an instrumental waltz that features a saw carrying the melody.
Surfacing also contains an enhanced CD portion that provides a multimedia overview of McLachlan's career. This presentation is by far the best enhanced CD I've ever seen, not only in terms of design simplicity and elegance but also because of its lightning quick speed and smooth play. The videos on the presentation were as sleek as VHS, and they start and stop on a dime (no waiting around for them to load and quit). The only maddening thing about it was that you can't control the video output - it is either on or off, so if you want to rewind a part or fast forward to a clip, you're out of luck. The ECD contains footage of McLachlan laying guitar parts for "Mystery", and it also includes some shots of McLachlan screwing up, which was a pleasant surprise - realizing that she's human also.
Surfacing is one of those albums that you enjoy the first time you listen to it, and then find yourself liking more and more as you continue listening to it. Like watching a child grow, watching an artist mature leaves the listener with a pleasant and satisfying taste ringing in your ears. Hopefully McLachlan will continue to satisfy us all for a while.
