Come Up Full (CD - 2008)

Audio Mixer: Jon Lupfer.

With a sleepy, soulful delivery akin to Lucinda Williams at her sultry best, Meg Hutchinson knows the art of restraint. Though the tempo of her music rarely strays from a soothing andante, she allows drama to build from emotionally resonant lyrics and quietly engaging melodies. This album, the singer/songwriter's fifth, features 12 laid-back acoustic numbers with minimal percussion and guitar overdubs, and was released by the respected folk label Red House Records.

Meg Hutchinson's debut for Red House seems good on the surface, with a strong production, fairly rootsy, well-played arrangements, and a distinctive voice. But look a bit deeper under the hood, and what you find is actually just another singer/songwriter with a bit more gloss and shinier, go-faster stripes. Her insights aren't especially insightful, and she can slide in a good turn of phrase here and there, and the excerpts from "Over the Rainbow" work well on "Somewhere," but the bottom line is that for much of this disc she's just fairly average, a talent that's still developing. She might become something special, since there are glimmers of the great hiding in "Song for Jeffrey Lucey." But we'll see what happens when she's shaken off the college creative writing course and fully found her own voice. ~ Chris Nickson minimize