Ina May Wool is a wonderful writer and performer who has played major and minor festivals. This second album release is a distillation of her writing and performing talent, which we are delighted to reveal, contains three more songs than originally intended.

"Taxi" tells the story of so many of the taxi drivers in New York with sympathy and a good ear for words. The title track, "Crack It Open," is beautifully performed and would deserve a good deal of airplay on stations that play good meaningful music. "Big Black Bear" is a fascinating lyric married to a nice tune. It draws your attention and holds it to the final word. What more should a song do?

The life of a touring singer-songwriter is condensed into just under four minutes on "Here We Go." "Opening shows for the once nearly famous, concerts and TV and agents galore" -- let's hope that one or more of the latter spy this great talent and make her much more than "nearly famous." "Lucky" is a very slow track but it is my favourite on this album of good tracks.

The first of the bonus tracks is the beautiful "Dinosaurs" that recalls childhood in some heartfelt lyrics. "Serial Lover" is another mini epic story set to music that bears careful listening as Ina May draws us through a series of love affairs.

The CD ends with "Heavy Hearted," but anyone listening will only be feeling this way because they have run out of tracks on a lovely album of original songs that display a rare talent for soul-searching lyrics and performs them to perfection.

- Rambles
written by Nicky Rossiter
published 8 May 2004

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