MARISA YEAMAN has been treading the boards now for over a decade with her bluesy alt country renaissance. Originally from Australia Yeaman toured Europe and America with her previous album and is a regular festival act in Australia, Belgium and more notably the Netherlands. Now she has released ‘Roadmap Heart’ it encapsulates everything that you would expect from a title of this manner. It’s a winding tale of trepid relationships that go decidedly wrong, with Yeaman pouring her heart out throughout the drawn out album.
The album begins with ‘1000 Yard Stare’ and no it’s not documenting a Veitnam Vet, no its purely describing an account a woman had walking away from a relationship (my guess, her). It’s swamped with clichéd lyrics, with Yeaman swerving from narrative to song with no real mid-ground. For an opener of an album, this falls so far short Yeamans literally got her head in the sand like a ostrich. ‘Old Hotel Phone’ recounts funnily enough a distressing phone call to an ex, ‘My heart sinks like an anchor/Of memories of us’. Its just sets a precedent for the rest of the album. ’Desolate’ sounds like a Shania Twain mock-up, I can only hope she can wear a leopard skin all in one as well as Miss Twain.
‘Dirty Hands’ she sings ‘You’ve been holding someone else/So keep your dirty hands’ a line we’ve started to expect from her only six songs in. This is where you can see a glimpse that there are musical foundations behind her with snatchy bluesy riffs. As a lyricist she falls flat on her face in this piece again. She sings ’I’m movin’ on’ all I can say is I wish I could but I have to finish this review. At last we get somewhere ‘Time Is Cast’ the best track on the album by a country mile. Laid on a canvas of country blues and Yeaman’s acoustic guitar she resonates like Annie Lennox with an amicable attempt concerning the song writing.
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‘Mercy Train’ implodes as a repetitive bluesy number that fills your brain with a whole lotta ‘mercy‘. Oh and if you didn’t know Yearman wants to inform you… ‘Don’t you know the train of love never runs on time’. So make sure your you are ready you wouldn’t want to miss it, sounds a ball. ‘Leaves’ was described by a Belgian music journalist as a masterpiece, if this is a masterpiece, how this pig trough of a song could ever been labelled this is a far fetched as this accomplishing anything outside Belgium and the Netherlands. ‘Like leaves from your heart/Like leaves from a tree’ case closed!
A tale of forced poetry left me with that vein on the side of my head pulsating with anger. I would like to say that listening to this album time flew by but it didn’t and like Simon Amstell once said ‘I’ll never get that time back’. It’s not the music, it really isn’t, there is some catchy bluesy country riffs in the album, the lyrics are forced, clichéd and most of all…awful.
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