Eschewing the eclectic dance pop that drove her 2007 debut solo album
Ten Feet High,
Andrea Corr (lead vocalist for popular Irish family band the
Corrs) decided to pay homage to the artists who inspire her by putting together a collection of covers. Unpredictable, yet reliably steeped in the radio-ready, adult alternative patina that fueled her work with the
Corrs and elsewhere,
Lifelines opens with a smoky rendition of the 1938 Irvin Kahal/
Sammy Fain-penned torch song “I’ll Be Seeing You,” followed by a sweet yet slick rendering of the
Velvet Underground's “Pale Blue Eyes.” Elsewhere, a spirited telling of
John Lennon's “No 9 Dream" pits
Corr's angelic voice against an
ELO-inspired foundation that dips in and out of psychedelic melancholia with studied studio grace,
Nick Drake's "From the Morning" bounces around a marimba-infused, pizzicato backbeat that elevates the plaintive folk song to a full-on worldbeat jam, while
Jon Anderson and
Vangelis' “State of Independence" finds
Corr adopting
Anderson's spritely phrasing with appropriate impishness.
Lifelines closes with a lovely, piano-led rendition of underground, manic depressive Texan
Daniel Johnston's beautiful “Some Things Last a Long Time,” lending the whole outing an air of hopeful yet fragile, bittersweet defiance. ~ James Christopher