New York City singer-songwriter Elana Arian's Foreword is a masterfully-crafted album featuring an impressive cast of players known for their work with Norah Jones, Dido, Lisa Loeb and They Might Be Giants. Arian has a very smooth voice and songwriting style that will appeal to fans of Joni Mitchell and Margo Guryan.
Highlights include the jazz-inflected "I Know What You're Doing" and the extremely musical "Too Soon". The album is highly listenable from start to finish - the playing is very tasty, the recording quality top-notch.
There are a few times when I personally find the material aesthetically objectionable - the obnoxious wah-wah funk of "In The Backroom" is particularly deleterious to the great start, making me think that Elana Arian is aiming at a demographic that I am distinctly not a part of. But on the whole this album is very good.




