[rating=3.50]
After years in the Big Apple, singer-songwriter Amy Speace headed back to Nashville and it appears that the change in scenery certainly hasn’t hurt her songwriting by the dozen offerings on Land Like a Bird. Throughout it all, Speace leaves her heart on her sleeve with the pretty, pensive and pop-tinged title track or the equally somber but folksy “Ghost,” featuring just guitar and Speace’s sweet styling. At other times she has Kim Richey helping her out as is the case on the tender but toe-tapping, Bonnie Raitt-ish “Half Asleep & Wide Awake”
Highlights are several, especially the deliberate and deliciously inviting “Change For Me” which settles in perfect after the opening verse. This same blueprint is almost followed to the letter on “Vertigo.” Meanwhile “Manila Street” is another simple, thoughtful nugget about letting go of a love lost as is the case with “Had To Lose” that brings the album’s tone down somewhat. One of the more memorable moments is Speace’s cover of Ron Sexsmith’s “Galbraith Street” with a slight McGarrigle-esque quiver in her voice. Speace might have had some upheaval in her personal life, but the delicacy she brings to the record makes the album soar like a bird as equally (and softly) as it lands like one.
