One of the biggest challenges of reviewing a 17 year-old singer is giving an honest opinion of her music and performance abilities, as opposed to commenting on the quality of her music and performance relative to her age. This challenge is headily evident in the case of 17 years of age, singer-songwriter Sonya Kitchell, whose impressive performance is countered by relatively unimaginative vocal stylings. Kitchell plays with a maturity and stage presence not often seen in musicians twice her age. Her recent show at Seattle’s Triple Door might well have been a 30-something musician at the peak of her career, if not for the buzz (no pun intended) generated by Kitchell’s adolescence and her current album and national tour, backed as they are by a major caffeine purveyor. She provided a captivating show, her natural charisma and poise amplified by the evident skill of the musicians with which she surrounded herself.
Playing to a somewhat unusual audience (seemingly composed of a mix of young women, visibly excited middle aged men and their families, and the rest of us), Kitchell’s mature voice and natural flair for performance gave her a solid vehicle for the delivery of songs in the tried and true style of pioneering women before her. Intimations of the vocal stylings of Beth Orton meld with hints of Nelly Furtado, with touches of Sarah McLachlan thrown in for good measure. All that said, however, Kitchell failed to captivate this reviewer. Her strong vocals rarely attempted unique or innovative musical tricks, and her lyrics were sadly lost in the musical landscape. In essence, Kitchell’s pastiche provided a reliably inoffensive, but rather unmemorable, soundtrack. Likely someone who’ll be around for a while, this reviewer hopes experience will give her the depth to match her already accomplished performance; when it does, Kitchell will be a musical force.
