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Sarah McLachlan's sound hasn't changed much in the seven years since Afterglow, but it does feel less sweeping than usual on Laws of Illusion.
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It has always been those smooth, lush arrangements that have allowed Sarah to wear her heart on her sleeve without turning every song into an oppressively cheerless engagement, and that is still the case on Laws of Illusion.
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All of McLachlan’s sonic trademarks are present and accounted for — dreamy keyboard washes, lilting rhythms, that angelic voice. They’re combined with her raw emotion in a beguiling manner that ranges from ethereal to rollicking.
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It’s a collection of ballads, hymns and waltzes, sung in long arcs of melody with a voice that enfolds its strength in breathy intimacy.
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Her songs fall easily on the ear, her rhyming schemes are adroit and she writes intelligently on serious subjects.
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If only McLachlan would've stripped out the more unoriginal instrumentation on other tracks and relied solely on her voice; it's a haunting, evocative thing we'd follow anywhere.
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Country diva channels marriage break-on first LP in nearly a decade.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 30
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Mixed: 4 out of 30
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Negative: 9 out of 30
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Dec 5, 2013
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RobD.Jun 17, 2010Lovely, simply lovely.
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ferdinandos.Jun 16, 2010Simply amazing.