Mellow Drama

There have been rumblings about Louise Burns’s debut ever since the local singer-songwriter popped back up on the musical landscape as a solo artist, her past as a heavily coiffed member of mall-rock mavens Lillix obscured by her newfound indie pedigree. Though we had to wait some time for the sentimental, throwback tunes heard on Mellow Drama, the delay doesn’t seem all that big a deal given the allure of dreamy numbers like opener “Chinook (Sing From the Valley of Doubt)” and the playful hip-shaker “What Do You Wanna Do”. Citing Mazzy Star, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Marr as inspiration, Burns holds up to her heroes. She dazzles in the vocal department throughout the disc, but it’s on the dangerously stripped-down “Island Vacation”, which puts each quaver of her enchanting voice starkly on display, that listeners will fully surrender to her charms. Whether singing about gold dust or neon shades of grey, the brown-eyed beauty is impossible to discount. Burns and her Mellow Drama are not about to be lost in the shuffle.
Jenny Charlesworth, Georgia Straight