I kind of feel bad giving this album a five, but I?m standing by it. Sally Doherty has an amazing vocal range, and her decision to flesh out her material in such a dense and lyrical way is a welcomed change from so much else of what I hear come through Foxy. The thing is, I don?t get feel too moved by any of it.

She has a samey lilt to her voice that is too reminiscent (at least to my ears) to people like Enya or Kate Bush. The fact that none of the material ever ventures too far from the gentle pixies world of female singer/songwriters doesn?t help pull me in either. Anyone with the impressive range and control that Doherty has over her voice is doing themselves a disservice by treading such uninventive waters.

Then again, I love safe music of various sorts. In other words, I have no problem with catchy pop, or pretty female vocals, or carefully orchestrated chamber arrangements for popular contemporary music per se, so it must simply be that this isn?t for me.

There?s an audience out there for this cd, and if you dig baroque, heavily arranged and somewhat dreamy songs about women who cry all the time, then knock yourself out. If you think that Tori Amos is the end zone of female singers then this cd should open new vistas for you.

Damn, okay, on second thought, I?ll admit that track 3, La Llorona (the one about the crying lady, sung entirely in Spanish), is actually pretty cool. It has a dramatic moodiness that transcends the dulling familiarity of the rest of the cd. If only Doherty would take more chances and exercise more interest in defying what one might expect of her vocal style and neo-classical arranging inclinations, we might be able to make an album of it. Sorry Sally, I know you gave it the old college try. I?m admittedly a bad choice for reviewing this one. 5/10 -- John Cramer (16 January, 2007)