Album Review: Anna Burch - Quit the Curse (Heavenly Recordings)

Detroit singer songwriter, Anna Burch, combines the vintage pop eras of 1960's girl-group pop and 1990's alt-rock on her solo debut.

Indie-pop musician Anna Burch has cut her teeth by playing in bands for a good few years before stepping forward with her debut solo effort, Quit The Curse. Beginning her musical career singing in folk-rock band Frontier Ruckus, then co-fronting the indie-rock group Failed Flowers, and being involved with a few other Michigan projects in her free-time, Anna is somewhat of an indie veteran. Quit the Curse, is a debut of sardonic witty commentary and saturnine indie-rock. Each track on the LP is awash with fuzzed out grungy guitar riffs and doo-wop vocal harmonies - keeping the cynical one-liners cheery. The years Burch spent performing and writing in other bands have clearly been advantageous. While listening to lead single 'Tea-Soaked Letter' its impossible not to notice that Anna gives the impression of being a natural songwriter. However, Burch herself admits her art has been a process of amendment and study, a journey that took her into her late twenties before she really relearned and knuckled down the songwriting process. Burch settles into an assured stride on tracks like 'Asking 4 a Friend,' which give a gentle nod to the 90's alt-rock era of Liz Phair's Girly Sound cassettes. The country-lilt of 'Belle Isle' swoons like a less affected and more upfront Angel Olsen. The convoluted chord changes and affable rendition throughout the LP, lift the 9 tracks out of any pastiched danger-zone and into the impressive realm on this confident and mature debut.