Amy Laber Cold, Cold Year
2008, Independent
In the last year or so, New Paltz-based singer songwriter Amy Laber has been quietly making a name for herself here in the Hudson Valley, playing prestigious venues like the Towne Crier in Pawling and Bodles Opera House in Chester.
Now Laber turns in an engaging nine-song CD produced by Todd Giudice with an understated sparseness. She calls her music “hypno-folk,” and it’s her strong Celtic leanings that give the music an intoxicating, underlying darkness. Bathed in slinky guitars, “In Your Shadow” finds Laber drunk on love and trying to avoid the inevitable hangover, while “Taken” is something you can really sink your teeth into, a deep, circular ode to commitment where Laber’s luxurious voice digs far down.
The autumn tones of “I Couldn’t Stop” recall a faraway time and place maybe you only visited in your dreams, but soon Laber’s soothing voice seduces and calls in the moving “Towers of Love” which holds a hypnotic drone and a story of 9/11 and its legacy. The unflinchingly honest of “Faith” is a powerful testament to love on all levels, and a fitting close to this exquisite collection. www.myspace.com/amylaber.
This article appears in April 2008.
