Often times art reveals something about the artist. With music, sometimes artists portray an accurate picture of their lives. Other times it is pure fiction. Listening to Jenn Grant albums it is fairly easy to judge what sort of emotions she is going through. With her last album Echoes, she wrote a breakup album. Although she didn’t know she was writing a break-up album at the time, the songs was wrapped with sad narratives of heartbreak and coping with moving on. Echoes showed an honest and earnest side of Jenn. With her third album Honeymoon Punch, the mood is dramatically different. Jenn’s wounded heart seems to be restored (she is getting married to In Flight Safety’s Daniel Ledwell after all). The album features songs with a little more pop and bounce. Opening track “Oh My Heart” starts things off on a dancable note with cheery tambourine claps and brass instrumentation. The joyous mood is continued with the synths and bass lines of “How I Met You”. A song like “Getcha Good” has the feelings of an oldies tune, full of happy and sappy lyrics, cheery horns, and something that you would love to dance to just as much as your grandmother would. Those almost still and beautiful moments that Jenn provides through her vocals aren’t all lost beneath the full sound of this album. There are still softer tracks such as “Paradise Mountain”and “All Year” that remind us all of why we fell in love with Jenn’s voice in the first place. The full sound on this album seems to indicate that both Jenn and her band have grown confident together as musicians and the end product is rewarding. It is fitting that the songs have the ability to make you smile, dance, and laugh. Anybody who has seen her perform live know that she has a fantastic stage presence as she plays her songs and tells hilarious stories. This album was able to tap into that joy that her music brings.
While after the first few listens this album hasn’t really jumped out at me, it seems like a grower of an album much like her previous albums. The type of songs that once explored further, are hard to put away. Don’t be surprised to hear this album mentioned around Polaris time or during end year lists for 2011.
Buy Honeymoon Punch on iTunes
You write about music the way an alien would. God bless you and keep having fun! AP