| Springtime Can Kill You | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 17 reviews)
Sales Rank: 72562
Category: Music
Artist: Jolie Holland
Publisher: Anti
Studio: Anti
Manufacturer: Anti
Label: Anti
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 86788
UPC: 045778678822
EAN: 0004577867882
ASIN: B000F3AAOS
Release Date: May 9, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Crush In The Ghetto | | • | Mehitibells Blues | | • | Springtime Can Kill You | | • | Crazy Dreams | | • | You're Not Satisfied | | • | Stubborn Beast | | • | Don't Tell 'Em | | • | Moonshiner | | • | Ghostly Girl | | • | Nothing To Do But Dream | | • | Adieu False Heart | | • | Mexican Blue |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
This 12-track song-cycle is a crossroads where haunting meets joyful; a voice from the heavens singing stories of the underworld. Holland's songs rise and fall like heavy eyelids and convey the peace between asleep and awake, creating a special place for you to be. Sounds from past and present-tense waltz together to a never ending melody that flickers between folk, jazz, blues, and pop. Holland's lyrics conjure characters and situations one might find in the surrealistic celluloid of Jim Jarmusch. As with all good dreams, there is an anything-goes spirit leading the way. Its this level of bravado that prompted All Music Guide to describe Holland's sound as "a listening experience that is singular, startling, and soulful.
Amazon.com
The test of an artist's true bearing is often found in their second album, the notion being that there's been a lifetime leading up to the debut, and then just a year or two for its successor. Jolie Holland has risen to the occasion with aplomb. Writing specifically for this release as well as for a band for the first time, there's a resonant bearing to the set as a whole. A dreamy quality pervades the set. As the instrumentation subtly varies from track to track, it further underscores the changing settings of a mind running wild while the body sleeps. Holland also addresses the idea overtly on the song "Nothing Left to Do But Dream." The gentle narrative offers surprises, such as the jarring, "I took my sister to the river and I came back alone." Small combo arrangements throughout serve to empower the lyrics--cliche-free and full of emotional breadth. --David Greenberger
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 It won't kill you, but it's no Catalpa or Escondida June 1, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I picked this up shortly after it came out and was initially so unhappy with it I decided to wait, avoid it for a while and then come back to it. It turns out that was the way to go for me because this did indeed grow on me, though it will never cozy up to Catalpa or Escondida.
There are 2 things that initially (and still do, to some extent) turned me off about this album. The main thing is that for some of this, she seems to have decided to go with the more affected vocal style she used on Escondida's Goodbye California, which is the only song from either of her first 2 albums that I despise... that I despise because of that vocal affectation. I don't know why she's chosen to do it, but on Goodbye California, and slipping in and out of it at various times on Springtime Can Kill You, it's as if she decided to sing in characature of herself. She sometimes uses this overtly mush-mouthed style that sounds more like someone who doesn't like Jolie might sing were they mocking her in an SNL skit. It's not usually as bad here as it is on Goodbye CA, but there are definitely moments here.
The 2nd thing that I think brings this one in below Catalpa and Escondida is that it doesn't really have the mysterious, magical, otherwordly rural quality of those 2 great albums. Don't get me wrong, there are some really good songs here... Crush, Mehitabel, Moonshiner, etc... but they're more just like really nice songs. Whereas the first 2 albums have the sort of mystical quality that might make one think Skip James had been reincarnated as a young 21st Century white woman who sings the sort of hair-raising country music that scares Toby Keith fans and CMT executives, this album is more just like a collection of some nice songs, a couple great songs, and a couple real ho-hummers.
Still, I can't totally be down on it. Along with the several favorites I mentioned above, I have to make special mention of Stubborn Beast which I completely love. That is some serious musical beauty right there.
While often good, sometimes great, and sometimes blah, overall this is a nice little album in which previous fans of Jolie will find things to like and/or love. If you've never bought/heard one of her albums though, this should not be your first. In fact, of her 3 albums thus far, this should be the 3rd one you consider. It'd be a darned shame if someone bought this and thought "Eh... I don't really dig her", and then never picked up Catalpa or Escondida, both of which are on a whole 'nother plane of existence.
Uneven and The Same February 25, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I love Jolie Holland. But on this album (like on Catalpa) the sound quality and pitch are uneven. It sounds like recordings from various performances, rather than a studio recording. That could be good, if done well ... The songs are too much the same, and many are too much like the Escondida & Catalpa songs. I think she can do much better than this.
Delightful! January 10, 2007
This is delightful stuff, with Jolie Holland's wonderfully unique voice. My only gripe--and it's a minor one--is that it gets a little repetitive- sounding if played in a single session, most of the tempos and lyrics much alike. But if you like good newfolk in the "Be Good Tanyas" vein, be sure to get this disk.
 Bottom of the Bottle October 27, 2006
4 out of 18 found this review helpful
"Springtime Can Kill You" is a somnambulist's dream album. Devoid of energy, it is the perfect set to put you to sleep or for those depressed people finally looking at the bottom of the bottle. Holland is an interesting lyricist. For example on "Stubborn Beast" she sings, "When the flames rise around us & I can't see the door, this is still my home & it has never burned before." However, the music is slow and the melody is unimaginative. Similarly, "Ghostly Girl" is a pitiful drone that cannot end soon enough. It's followed by "Nothing to do but Dream" that has plunky guitar that sounds like it's played by a student on their third guitar lesson. "Adieu False Heart" is the title of the new collaboration set by Linda Ronstadt & Ann Savory. Without the Holland twang, Ronstadt & Savory put the emphasis on the melody in a beautiful rendition. Here again, the prosaic guitar strum weighs the track into boredom. "Mexican Blue" has an interesting lyric but has Holland's two-finger piano sounding like a rehearsal. It's not usual that I find a set that has no tracks that I enjoy, but Holland has pulled that off. Listen to be sure that you're depressed enough to appreciate this music B4 U buy. Taxi!
most unique voice out there in songland September 8, 2006
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
her voice is like a hubcap falling off and rolling --
going 10 miles an hour down a dirt road 70 years ago
in some west texas bohemian samll-town backwoods ghetto --
beautiful and mesmerizing.
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