Los Angeles / Brooklyn based vocalist, composer and recording artist Sondra Sun-Odeon releases her sophomore album Desyre via Graveface Records. Sun-Odeon is known for her songs of ethereal melancholia and otherworldliness...

Sondra Sun-Odeon might be known for her melancholic warbling, but I was seriously in danger of slipping into a depressed state... not because the music was particularly downbeat, but because her vocals were just off key enough to give you a migraine.

Tracks like 'Vision' conjured up a mental image of throwing a party, only at some point for some drunk to find my guitar and start to make up a song on the spot. Probably brilliant if you're pissed... not so much if you're sober.

For me the biggest disappointment is that the music is actually pretty good. There's a diversity here that makes the album worth revisiting time and again... Or it would if it weren't for the fact that Sun-Odeon's vocals are so distracting. We know she can sing, because on the occasional track her vocals are flawless. So I can't understand why at no point did anyone point out when her vocals are not quite in tune with the rest of the band.

There's something here... but a poor production makes this a below par release.

4

Nick Smithson