Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Ultimately, her album represents an admirable stab at the mainstream by an indie artist who isn't afraid to dabble in the dark arts of classic songwriting, instrumental ability, and professional production.
-
On the one hand, it's impressive how she can weave so many different touches into her music, but on the other, things can get a bit schizophrenic. Unfortunately, the common denominator is nondescript pop-rock that loses its ability to enchant with repeated listens.
-
She's ripe to land a song in an Apple commercial and hit it big, but you can't fault her. The girl knows how to make you look.
-
Catching a Tiger (Fat Possum), her full-length debut, comes most alive with a handful of songs about reaching for someone who isn't there (e.g., "In Sleep," which evokes Fleetwood Mac) or evading someone who is (e.g., "Loosen the Knot," more of a power-pop surge).
-
Lissie is certainly a phenomenal talent and one to watch, but it's disappointing that Catching a Tiger doesn't make a more lasting first impression.
-
Lissie's voice is haunting as always, but the band doesn't match this tone, and as a result it no longer sounds like Lissie's song. Hopefully these missteps aren't enough to put people off, because Lissie is still a significant new voice.
-
This debut only strengthens Lissie's potential to become one of folk music's newest sirens.
-
Cohesion will come soon; she's got all the nuts and bolts.
-
Her magnetic debut album doesn't aim to break new ground, but her rustic, Stevie Nicks–ish voice unifies the myriad sounds that position her as both a radio-ready alt-country chick and a young, hip folkstress who pulls off online covers of Lady Gaga and Kid Cudi.
-
On Tiger there's more than a whiff of tequila in the air-yellowy-green shots knocked back fast followed by hazy mornings filled with nagging regrets. This could perhaps be considered "folk" in some generous sense of the word, but let's not be afraid to call it what it really is: unbridled, unselfconscious, swirling, head-pounding pop.
-
Catching a Tiger is pretty darn eclectic with the quality dial rarely dipping below "Danger High Voltage".
-
Lissie does not fully earn her an-artist-apart stripes with Catching a Tiger, but all the signs are here. Give the girl a second and she'll steal your heart; give her another album and she will, quite possibly, become untouchable.
-
Catching A Tiger has its moments of spontaneity, marking Lissie's talent for songwriting and blending genres, but also of calculated engineering, designed to make her into the Next Big Female Songwriting Sensation.
-
Equally comfortable with dance grooves ("When I'm Alone"), country-tinged laments ("Everywhere I Go"), and epic pop dramas ("Loosen the Knot"), Illinois-bred, California-based Elisabeth Maurus is a promising work in progress on this smoothly produced debut.
-
As a country-folk songwriter with a bit of rust and regret in her voice, she has her moments, but she's equally capable of the kind of drivetime blandness that endeared Sheryl Crow to America's AOR radio programmers.
-
MojoHer voice packs a punch, her songwriting is solid, and the album--while a little over-polished--is bursting with confidence. [Jul 2010, p.94]
-
Q MagazineIf there's one complaint, its that pop commercialism occasionally gets the better of her. [Aug 2010, p.123]0
-
UncutThere's shades of both Stevie Nicks and Neko Case in Lissie's voice, a resplendent instrument that's both husky and mellow, attuned equally to the epic and the intimate. But Really the sound and songs here are a testament to her unaffected individuality. [Aug 2010, p.86]
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 13 out of 14
-
Mixed: 1 out of 14
-
Negative: 0 out of 14
-
Sep 25, 2012
-
May 29, 2011