Florence Dore - Perfect City

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Track List: Perfect City

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Album Details: Perfect City

Release Date:: 04/23/2002
Label:: Slewfoot
UPC:: 809812080923

User Reviews: Perfect City

Impressive country-rock debut
, July 17, 2002
Reviewer: redtunictroll - See all redtunictroll's reviews

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Though the Nashville-born Professor Dore (Ph.D. 1999, UC Berkeley; post-doc NYU; Kent State faculty) is known in academic circles for her work in American literature (most especially for her studies of William Faulkner's writings), her country-rock songs are anything but bookish. Her mix of narratives and poetic sightseeing bring to mind Lucinda Williams, while the catchiness of her presentation harkens to the breakthrough hits of Mary-Chapin Carpenter. But in contrast to Carpenter's folky beginnings, Dore starts with rock 'n' roll and leavens it with the introspection of folk, the twang of country, and the soul of blues.

Dore first came to national attention with her song "Christmas," recorded in 1996 by The Posies, a Seattle-based powerpop outfit. The down-tempo tune, revisited here, provides an inner dialog of resignation on a lonely Christmas day. Dore's hometown conjures up the big-city longing in "No Nashville," but the song's examination of adult children's family tensions works well beyond its Tennessee hill-country setting. Dore's academic life show up fleetingly in the title track and the closing ode to Kent, OH, "Wintertown." The band turns upbeat for "Brain" and "Everything I Dreamed." The former borrows a Beatles riff and adds a twangy baritone guitar lead, the latter's rockabilly sound features guitarist Chris Erikson's flashy flatpicking and duet vocal.

Producer Eric "Roscoe" Ambel (Bottle Rockets, Blood Oranges) brings his experience as a rock and roots-rock guitarist with the Blackhearts and Del Lords to balance the backings with the punchy drumming of ex-Smithereen Dennis Diken, acoustic and electric guitars, as well as touches of organ and piano. Combined with Dore's writing, and the years of gigging that preceeded recording, this debut is more highly accomplished than one would expect from a "new" artist.

3-3/4 stars, if Yahoo allowed fractional ratings. ...

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Pro Reviews: Perfect City

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From AMG Reviews

Like that of Liz Phair or Laura Cantrell, Florence Dore's music is literate and personal and uses its chosen genre -- folk/pop/rock with a twang -- as a vehicle for an immersion in intellect and emotion. Perfect City was produced by guitarist Eric Ambel (Steve Earle, Blood Oranges, Bottle Rockets), and features references to William Faulkner's -The Sound and the Fury ("Perfect City") and Kent, OH ("Wintertown"), where, at the time of its recording, she was a professor of American literature at Kent State. Her stylistically informed background -- punk, folk, country -- allows for a diversity of styles within the album, which achieves cohesion within its own feverish and soothing permutations. The album speaks of dignified love and embraces the fact that it rarely ever is ("Postcard"), of the leaps that can be acheived by doing nothing ("Early World"), and of the beauties in life that can only be seen in reference to one's own immortality ("Say the Thing"), where she plaintively asks the song's recipient to "Say the thing that keeps the plaster from peeling/Say the thing that keeps the stairway from reeling." "Christmas," which first received notoriety in a version by the Posies, is a dirge about spending the holiday alone, dealing with a breakup, and questioning everything, wherein she sings, "I'm holding onto you and I don't know why/I don't have faith in what's supposed to be," and pours into the chorus, "You made me cry for the last time/That's okay Christmas means little to me." The album's other slow, bittersweet ballad, "No Nashville," which reflects on the ambiguities felt when returning to one's hometown, is simply a classic in waiting.

- Travis Drageset, All Music Guide

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Florence Dore Biography

Nashville native Florence Dore played with various punk, rock and country bands for 15 years before cutting her first LP Perfect City. An academic by day, Dore pursued her music career while earning a doctoral degree in American literature. Her disse...Full Florence Dore Biography

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