Dailyish Review - She & Him - Volume One

When I first heard that Scarlett Johansson was recording a Tom Waits cover album, I was pretty confused. Maybe a little turned on, but mostly confused. I mean, I like Tom Waits, and I like that ScarJo is…bosomy, but other than that, it kind of came out of left field. But when I heard that M.Ward and Zooey Deschanel were collaborating on an album, finally, there was a musician-actress combo that made sense: the indie prince of folk, and the folksy princess of indie. Not only is it not surprising, it just makes good sense. While comparisons to Patsy Klein or Dusty Springfield will fly, by the second line of album opener “Sentimental Heart,” Deschanel lays claim to the album as her very own. Meanwhile, Ward happily plays the man behind the woman, providing instrumentation tailor-fit to showcase Deschanel’s easy-listening vocals, which hit their peak in the country ballad “Change is Hard,” and the decidedly more ebullient “Sweet Darlin’,” where the actress really gets to play with the down-home twang that peppers her voice throughout the album. Volume One is a promising marriage of Ward’s relaxed folk and Deschanel’s emotive charms. It’s a match made in indie Camelot.

Merge

3/5

–Nojan Aminosharei