Don't Hurry For Heaven

Canadian-born, Virginia-based singer/songwriter Devon Sproule takes the advice of her own album title on this fifth release, never quite turning up the musical heat to full boil, but creating a slow-simmering stew of folkie goodness. Recorded quickly after almost two years of non-stop touring and a summer of music festivals, Sproule and her band sound perfectly at ease with each other, and a wholesome, contented vibe pervades the tracks, produced by her husband and labelmate Paul Curreri. The production is simple, unembellished, almost demo-like, with the addition of unobtrusive horns, banjo, and the shimmering pedal steel of music legend B.J. Cole on several cuts. Sproule's songs make tendrilled excursions into jazzy folk and country (and one detour in a gentle, hippiefied dub, on the cover of Black Uhuru's "Sonji Reggae"), with lyrics that extol the simple pleasures and occasional sorrows of life, dwelling on domesticity and happiness a little more than the average singer/songwriter's, but never straying into treacle territory. Sproule comes alive most when she's singing the Americana-flavored numbers. The title track features a full-throated, throbbing Patsy Cline vocal, and sweet retro harmonies. The pretty country waltz "Julie" is a violet-scented sachet of a song, and a welcome melodic entry after a somewhat rambling album opener. Over the course of her career, Sproule has proven herself an adept Lilith Fair-type rocker, an authentic jazz vocalist, and a purveyor of winsome, stripped-down folk. Here, she sounds like she's just having a really nice day, and a nice life, with nothing to prove at all. ~ Paula Carino|