A couple of months ago, I came across the lead single from Anna Burch's Quit the Curse. "2 Cool 2 Care" is sweet, shimmering pop with a retro vibe. Its themes are a bit darker, though: co-dependence, substance abuse. The song's structure is somewhat unconventional and complex, but "2 Cool 2 Care" remains diabolically catchy. The guitars feel like a lazy summer day. Burch's voice and lyrics are right out front.
Quit the Curse, Burch's solo debut, came out a couple of weeks ago; and the rest of the record shows as much promise as that first single. It spans and mixes and matches different genres in the service of each song. "Tea Soaked Letter" is bouncy and upbeat with Burch as the only one in a relationship who's open about her feelings. "Asking 4 a Friend" trades some of the jangle of the first two tracks for a chugging 90s feel. Burch sings in a crystalline, appealing, kind of monotone for much of the record, but "Asking 4 a Friend" finds her doing a little bit more.
Burch stretches her voice a bit on "Belle Isle" as well. It could be a straight-up country standard in that Patsy Cline as filtered through Neko Case or Nicole Atkins kind of way. Engineer Collin Dupuis, who's worked with Angel Olsen and Lana Del Rey, mixed Quit the Curse; and "Belle Isle" is right in line with the sound of some of Dupuis's past collaborators.
The album's second half touches on 70s AM radio pop ("What I Want") and some more dreamy 90s sounds ("Yeah You Know," "With You Every Day").
Anna Burch spent several years as a member of folk / Americana band Frontier Ruckus, and Quit the Curse definitely shows flashes of those folky beginnings. But this isn't a roots album. Quit the Curse is a meticulously well-crafted pop record. It's bright, infectious, and a little deceptive. Burch's lyrics, at times, deal with things like self-doubt, bad relationships, scoring drugs; but almost all of them come wrapped in the sweetest sounds.
Quit the Curse is out now on Polyvinyl.
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