Artist: Charlotte Martin
Album Title: On Your Shore
Tracks: 13
Label: RCA
Reviewed By: Derek Skillings

Charlotte Martin is a great artist on paper. She has a wonderful classically trained voice, a by-product of being an opera singer. She plays her piano adeptly and has the singer and piano/ bad girl on the edge persona. Her lyrics are adequate and seem heartfelt. Her songs have often been compared with Tori Amos, Kate Bush, and The Cure. That last one I don’t get, I think it is a case of somebody who didn’t listen to her music hearing that she was influenced by The Cure, and transposing the two. All that considered, she should be a good artist, with a good album, right?  Well something just doesn’t add up.

For the longest time I just couldn’t figure out what it was that was missing. The songs sounded like they should be good, but nothing was grabbing and I would soon get bored. Not the kind of bored demonstrated by the punk listener who can’t stand any song on a piano with a slow tempo, the kind where you just aren’t’ feeling anything in the music. Then it dawned on me. She ain’t got no soul. Her songs just seem to be lacking any real emotion. Sure you could mistake emotion in the lyrics into real emotion, but I don’t.

Now whether this is just a by-product of overproduction or a real quality of her music is hard to tell. Maybe she puts on one heck of a live show. But on the album things are sterile. Nothing in her music jumps out and makes you want to care, if only for a second.