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Title: Like a singing refrigerator
Review: My impression of this album is that Ryland Angel knows everything about singing and nothing of what he is singing about. The stacked harmonies of his background overdubs are amazing, but his lead vocals are stiff, stiff, stiff. Take Broken Heart for example: "When you had left I stood, I was broken inside. It was if you were slowing down the beat of my heart." No, I'm sorry, but this just comes across as descriptive text for the emotionally impaired. What he should be singing is "When you left, you ripped my heart out!"Each word is perfectly shaped (by far the best "was" I have ever heard), but the meaning of the words and the arc of the melody never make it off the printed sheet. These songs are like refrigerator magnet poetry; each word unconnected with the larger whole. Just move the magnets around and Ryland sings another sequence of pretty notes.
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