★★★★★
Though Canadian chanteuse Holly Cole and her longtime trio mates, pianist Aaron Davis and bassist David Piltch, released their first live album a few months ago, five years have passed since their last studio session. In the interim, Cole seems to have shifted focus from delightfully quirky to coolly mature, her voice now tinged with an enticing hint of gravel, her trademark slyness more pensive...
- jazztimes.com
2012-12-06
★★★★★
Throughout most of the '90s, vocalist Holly Cole and her trio mates, pianist Aaron Davis and bassist David Piltch, could be counted on for a new album every year. But during the new millennium their output became more erratic, ceasing altogether after their ninth studio release, 2007's Holly Cole...
- jazztimes.com
2012-06-04
★★★★★
On Temptation, her album of TomWaits covers, Holly Cole is best when she contains her voice to a throaty, sexy whisper; when she unleashes it, she turns Waits' rain-swept nightmare world into supper-club fare. What's consistently effective is the minimal soundscape crafted by producer Craig Street. 'B"
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Holly Cole's fourth studio
album Dark Dear Heart reinvents the Canadian cabaret chanteuse as a thinking
person's pop diva, integrating slick production while keeping
the focus on her duskily expressive voice. Her readings of tunes
by the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Sheryl Crow carry an
understated emotional authority, but it's her tender renditions
of two songs by Mary Margaret O'Hara that best showcase Cole's
interpretive gifts. B
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Like Cassandra Wilson, interpretive singer Holly Cole understands that a pop standard doesn't have to be a song written before President Kennedy was elected. On 1995's Temptation, Cole cannily gave Tom Waits' oeuvre a woman's touch; on Dark Dear Heart, this cover girl lends sultry minimalism to nuggets ranging from Lennon and McCartney's "I've Just Seen a Face" to Joni Mitchell's "River" to "You Want More," a sinuous Sheryl Crow composition...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Gavin Bryars's booklet notes to this CD begin with the words, "On being almost Canadian...," an allusion to his frequent visits to the Great White North in the 1990s. Most of the music on this CD was either written in Canada or premiered there. Bryars even met his wife Anya in British Columbia in 1998. This CD is an important addition to the Bryars discography. I think only By the Vaar has been recorded before...
- www.classical.net
2009-06-06
★★★★★
A sensitive, ballad project, The Best Of Holly Cole compiles selected smoky pearls from her '90s albums Yesterday & Today, Blame It On My Youth, Dark Dear Heart, Don't Smoke In Bed, Temptation and It Happened One Night. Nearly half are slow, romantic numbers, while the others drive steadily with a cool detachment. Pop music sentiment and a touch of country-western charm bring Cole's heartfelt performances closer to a rather large audience...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
The irony of this CD title is hard to miss. Holly Cole's confident, smoky alto might convey dark humor or cautious optimism, painful regret or self-aware neurosis, but definitely not helplessness. Ms. Cole combines the modern, post-feminist attitude of the Lilith Fair crowd with the sophistication of a pre-rock interpretative singer.Holly Cole has always been difficult to categorize. Jazz purists have never been taken with Ms...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Holly Cole has remained an acquired taste for many listeners who like to slot artists into pre-determined categories. And that's not quite fair. Rising in awareness and not quite acceptance among jazz enthusiasts throughout the nineties, Cole has continued to perform the tunes that intrigue her?that is, tunes with meaningful lyrics and tunes which offer opportunities for creative interpretation. The Best Of Holly Cole isn't going to change anyone's opinions about her...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
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