Rachel Margaret – Buena Vista Park

Rachel Margaret – Buena Vista Park / 2007 Self / 4 Tracks  http://www.myspace.com/rachelmargaretmusic /

“Landfill” is one of the focal points on “Buena Vista Park”, and while the instrumentation is softly-stated and meanders around the vocals, Margaret here comes correct and creates a brand of modern pop-rock that is just as honest and impressive as anything released by Fiona Apple or others of her ilk. “Someday Soon” is a slightly faster song than “Landfill”, and brings Margaret into the space created by Annie Lennox and Enya, albeit with a more marketable sound. This more radio friendly sound is what links this track to “Landfill”, and ensures that listeners will keep focused in to “Buena Vista Park“. The title track for this EP uses more of the wide-open compositions that presented themselves on “Someday Soon”. “Buena Vista Park” is interesting due to the trend during the track for the instrumentation to rival the vocals in regards to the emotional content in each.

It takes a rare brand of musician to be able to create such a high level of emotional content on a track, but this trend is present throughout all of “Buena Vista Park“. “Solitude” may have a more inorganic sound to the instrumentation on the track, but this does not mean that the compositions on the track are sterile. Actually, the electronic, cold sound of the track feels to me to be a second set of vocals, the negative to the weary positive that Margaret puts forth on this track. “Buena Vista Group” may only be an EP, but individuals will understand quite well where Margaret is coming from by the time that this album spins to an end.

During the entirety of “Buena Vista Group”, Margaret handles eirself quite well. This gives me hope that the successes achieved here could easily be transferred to an album that is twice or thrice the time of “Buena Vista Park“. There is significant variation to the tracks on this EP, while still crafting a common thread of current pop-rock that runs through the songs here. Given the success of “Buena Vista Park“, it would not be a surprise to see Margaret receive rotation on contemporary and pop/rock format radio stations. All that ey needs is a video, and this could easily make it to the Good Life network or VH1 (if VH1 still plays videos, that is). Simply put, Rachel Margaret is an artist whose stock can only go up from here. Pick this EP up.

Top Track: Someday Soon

Rating: 6.2/10

Sargeant

John Sargeant, writing on NeuFutur as Sargeant, is the founder and editor-in-chief of NeuFutur Magazine, where he has covered independent music, PC hardware, consumer tech, and gaming culture since 1998. With over 25 years of continuous digital publishing experience, he has written thousands of hands-on game and record reviews, conducted in-depth hardware field testing, and analyzed digital media monetization trends. His work prioritizes first-hand evaluation and long-term product testing.

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