A Girl Called Eddy

A musically packed upbringing has enabled Erin Moran to release a wonderfully composed debut album that requires patient ears to appreciate it. Music-loving parents fed Moran a steady diet of legends (Dorsey, Sinatra, the Beatles, etc.) in her childhood New Jersey home, while a job as a receptionist at a New York recording studio found her meeting such stars as David Bowie and Paul Simon at an impressionable age. Such strong influences find their way onto Moran’s introduction to the world as A Girl Called Eddy. Her breathy, low register tone, dynamic phrasing, and stark lyrical imagery place her in the same category as Dusty Springfield, Aimee Mann, Leonard Cohen, and even Bowie. On songs such as "Tears All Over Town” and "Girls Can Really Tear You Up Inside,” Eddy plays it icy cool like a restrained P.J. Harvey. She lets loose a bit more on "The Long Goodbye,” whose chorus wants desperately to be a radio hit but is actually handicapped by Eddy’s brooding verses. A deep pain is revealed in an ode to her late mother ("Kathleen”) while she appears deeply sympathetic on the sadness-soaked "Somebody Hurt You.” Despite her reserve, Eddy can also play the enthused fan, as she does borrowing quotes from a Sinatra hit while evoking Tori Amos on "People Used To Dream About The Future,” or interpolating the intro of the Burt Bacharach-via-the Carpenters’ hit "Close to You” on the haunting "Heartache.” Poppy left turns such as "Life Thru the Same Lens” are indicative of A Girl Called Eddy’s remarkable breadth as a young artist and contribute much to this excellent debut, which is sure to turn a lot of heads.