MINDY SMITH > Stupid Love

Stupid Love plays familiar tricks with the kind of embellishment folkies have been applying to the same old chord changes since time immemorial, or at least since the 1970s.MINDY SMITH > Stupid Love
Label: VANGUARD
[Rating: 3 stars]

Mindy Smith has written an entire album about-get this-failed relationships, and Stupid Love plays familiar tricks with the kind of embellishment folkies have been applying to the same old chord changes since time immemorial, or at least since the 1970s. Still, Smith’s damaged and slightly lazy voice (her breathiness is first alluring, then begins to sound like a mannerism) dramatizes her homiletic pop, and the production adds interesting keyboard textures to guitar and pedal steel. Smith lives in “this world of fallen kingdoms” and doesn’t like it very much, and “Surface” finds her decrying the devil and attesting to the value of truth. The up-tempo numbers sound something like contemporary country music, but Smith doesn’t seem to have the heart to, you know, rock and roll. She remains an interesting songwriter, but when she hits the mark, as on “Love Chases After Me,” Smith makes first-rate pop music.