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Asking for Flowers leaves no doubt that Kathleen Edwards has arrived and made an album that's funny, startling, poignant, and (once again) worthy of repeated play.
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Her third album continues her clear-minded, open-hearted lyricism, though with a ripeness that comes from years on the road and years more to reflect.
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Asking for Flowers is filled with literate and provocative lyricism, vivid characters and cinematically engaging scenarios.
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Edwards brings on none of the filler that watered down her earlier albums as she moves steadily from scathing to soothing, from rocking country to Gothic sketches, from strength to strength.
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Her third album, collects 11 new songs that document Edwards’ growth from singer who writes songs to bona fide songwriter who has embraced the art of subtlety.
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Her fourth album comes as a pleasant surprise, arguably tough country at its finest. Her clear, pristine vocals convey longing, heartbreak and the sexiness of the working class with honesty and grace.
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On her strongest album yet, she sets a poignant road tale between New York and Ontario ('Buffalo') and pens a fierce, Crazy Horse-ish squall about crack, murder and racism in her own back yard.
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She’s managed to improve on her last record, the universally adored "Back to Me," thanks to progressively mature songwriting, a stellar backing band, and solid production
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On this mesmerizing third album, she’s mostly outgrown the obvious Lucinda Williams and Neil Young comparisons (the Crazy Horse-channeling “Oh Canada” aside), using her lustrous folk-rock melodies to dull the sting of her unsentimental tales.
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The Hamilton, Canada-based songstress has creamed together her best set yet. In Asking For Flowers, Edwards is uncompromising, but sombre.
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On Asking for Flowers, she sounds better than her peers for being so much braver.
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Asking For Flowers is the work of a musician freshly settled in to the rhythm of her creative seas, and from here it is the horizon where her true potential shines.
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Song for song, the album falls short of “Back to Me.” It could use more of her old feistiness.
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That Edwards has written a collection that includes both great individual lines and some spectacular songs makes Asking for Flowers by far her most accomplished work.
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The title song is killer, but built of such familiar musical materials that when it comes around the third time, it’s plumb tuckered out. The track is one of three standouts that run over five minutes, and all three are too long.
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UncutHer blowsy voice now seems happier in those quieter settings. [May 2008, p.104]
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Q MagazineBattered by love yet ever hopeful, and with a fetching drawl to match, her story songs might occupy familar alt-country terrain, but surrounding herself with some top LA session men helps give Asking For Flowers that extra bit of class. [May 2008, p.130]
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MojoWith her co-producers, they fashion some perfectly weighted, tastefully adorned grroves but her voice, an idiosyncratic mix of Lucinda Williams and Dolores O'Riordan inflections, sometimes jars. [Apr 2008, p.100]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 14
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Mixed: 0 out of 14
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Negative: 2 out of 14
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Mar 19, 2014
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OthoS.Apr 8, 2008
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SmilinJimmyApr 4, 2008An awesome album.