Goswell has long let her whispery voice take a backseat to Slowdive’s washes of sound or her Mojave 3-counterpart Neil Halstead’s singer/songwriter persona. Now, after more than a decade of music-making-in-the-background, Goswell has summoned up the courage to step to the fore and the results are a mixed bag. Waves is a decidedly poppier version of the breathless, open-chord California her current band evokes. The songs here are sturdy and catchy, but with the exception of a few remarkable numbers like “No Substitute” and “Shoulder the Blame,” an unfortunate number of them are also disturbingly pedestrian. Even with the obvious straining of Goswell’s vocal range on an a tune like “No Substitute” (which is more comforting than pathetic) the songs that shine do so quite brightly. However, a track like “Warm Summer Sun” – with its sub-Sheryl Crow-isms – is, sadly, far more indicative of how bad the album gets when it does get bad.
This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2004.