By Todd Lavoie
Cue the strings! Fire up the mellotron! Roll out the timpani! There’s always room for more melodrama in my life – just as long as it’s strictly of the musical variety – and lucky me, new discovery Nicole Atkins is making everything pretty blood-and-thunder in my house, thank you very much. It’s all smoke and fire and shadows and oh-so-devilishly noir, and I don’t ever want to leave. How could I, when she makes the darkness so damn romantic?
The self-described Jersey girl just released her debut, Neptune City (Red Ink/Columbia), and I’ll be damned if it ain’t one of the most compelling, thrillingly promising first albums on a major label this year. I could easily offer a dozen different points-of-comparison for the full-throated chanteuse – and chances are, I probably will by the time I’m done here – but Atkins seems to be out there on her own with this one. And yeah, that’s a compliment – of the highest order, in fact.
Neptune City is an ambitious piece of wide-screen-seeking theatrical pop, offering an alluring re-interpretation of ’50s/early ’60s sounds: Phil Spector, Roy Orbison, and Patsy Cline rolled into one, then sent packing on the coldest night of winter into the cruel neon of a heartless city. They might be mean streets, but she sure manages to make them seem inviting nonetheless.