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Review: 'OH SUSANNA'
'A Girl In Teen City'   

-  Label: 'Continental Song City'
-  Genre: 'Alt/Country' -  Release Date: '12th May 2017'-  Catalogue No: 'CSCCD1142'

Our Rating:
I've always loved Suzie Ungerleider's voice. Like Neko Case or Laura Cantrell, she has all those classic old time country elements while still managing to sound thoroughly modern. She comes across as a quietly rebellious girl next door type politely kicking over the traces - refreshingly down to earth yet nobody's fool.

Recently Suzie had a cancer scare; the kind of life changing event that tends to make you look back rather than face an uncertain future. Now thankfully in good health she is nevertheless in the mood to re-examine her roots.

After an album of songs written for her by fellow Canadian musicians (Namedropper), her friend and producer, Jim Bryson encouraged by her to pen a more personal collection.

The result is a concept album in which she revisits her teenage self, a girl who spent her formative years in a sleepy, unprepossessing port town. She recalls the thrills, spills, awkwardness and heartbreak she felt while growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia during the 1980s.

The songs chart moments falling in and out of love, getting drunk, hanging out with friends and "trying to find out who she is while trying to be something she isn’t".

She is assisted by a tight band. Bryson plays guitar and keyboards Eli Abrams on bass, Cam Giroux on drums, Gord Tough on guitar, and guest harmony vocalists include Holly McNarland, Gabrielle Giguere, Suzie’s sister Jessie and niece Sofia.

While she doesn't trace the whole story from a shy "girl in a corner" to a self-possessed girl in a band, she nevertheless reveals the process leading from observer to participant with warmth and nostalgia.

Suzie works in memories of the clothes she wore, the bars and venues she went to and the boys she dated. The story begins "on the cusp of the 7th grade" and closes with an unsentimental portrait of her home city with My Old Vancouver.

On Puget Sound she recalls listening to Folkways records; an inspiration for the folk meets alternative country that has marked a career that continues to flourish thanks to honest and engaging records such as this one.

Oh Susanna's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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OH SUSANNA - A Girl In Teen City