So there's this one song. "Late Bloomer". There's not that much to it - it has a chorus/bridge thing that gets repeated a lot and isn't even that catchy, and the story it tells, while evocative, is kind of familiar on the verge of trite and doesn't, y'know, culminate. And yet, I've been listening to it over and over - just like the song whose writer Nancy goes in search of, sweeping along the song's besotted 16 year old narrator, herself furious and restless, possessed of a chelsea girl haircut and a plane ticket to Paris - and I think mostly it's because the verses, and the singing generally, are so damn charming, beguiling, in that Jenny Lewis way ... still a heartthrob after all these years.
Elsewhere, The Voyager is perfectly nice; there's "Just One of the Guys", with that pleasing music video and a tune that's good enough to stand without it, and "Love U Forever", one of those sunnily veering indie-rock confections that I've always liked, and a bunch of other neat songs too. But - "Late Bloomer". Sprightly, characterful, a touch melancholy - that's the one that cuts through.
Elsewhere, The Voyager is perfectly nice; there's "Just One of the Guys", with that pleasing music video and a tune that's good enough to stand without it, and "Love U Forever", one of those sunnily veering indie-rock confections that I've always liked, and a bunch of other neat songs too. But - "Late Bloomer". Sprightly, characterful, a touch melancholy - that's the one that cuts through.
