Album Review: Heart on My Sleeve by Mary Lambert

Review Summary: Transmitting the tunes of all dead soulsQuite a number of mixed opinions have surfaced the moment Blues Funeral hit the shelves a couple of years ago. Seeing Mark Lanegan embracing electronic elements within his trademark, alternative rock/folky blues style, raised a few eyebrows. Even so, he wasn't a total stranger to it as his tenure with Soulsavers smoothly introduced us to a rather similar path, albeit partly hidden under a lovely, vintage sound.

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The title of Mary Lambert's debut, Heart on My Sleeve, reads like a concise manifesto of her work as a singer, slam poet, and, most famously, hook-crafter for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's Grammy-winning “Same Love. ” Opening the album with the lines “I've got bipolar disorder/My shit's not in order,” on lead single “Secrets,” seems like an air-clearing gesture, a declaration that no material will be too sacred or too personal. The song's tone and tempo, however, lift these personal admissions into the realm of bouncy, windows-down radio pop, as Lambert backs her lines with a peppy handclap/thigh-slap pattern, a driving 4/4 beat, and joyful horns.

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A year after her vocals on Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Same Love" made her into a star, Mary Lambert delivered Heart on My Sleeve, her full-length debut. Unlike Welcome to the Age of My Body, her time-buying 2013 EP, this downplays Lambert's roots as a poet, instead positioning her as a somewhat conventional singer/songwriter. This means, despite a doleful voice-and-piano reading of Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl," Heart on My Sleeve resembles the immaculate melodicism of Sara Bareilles more than the elusive, elliptical Tori Amos.

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Sincerity went out of fashion, like, two decades ago, right? That’s one reason for the paucity of issues-minded pop in recent years. Whatever the real enemy is — capitalism, narcissism or any of their cousins — pop music has become an underused vehicle for unironic statements of change, a ….

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"My heart's too big for you to understand me," concludes Mary Lambert on "Monochromatic," one of many self-reflective moments on her debut, Heart on My Sleeve. The Seattle native's earnest songwriting exudes a warm directness that makes her an appealing new pop voice. But the downside of that lyric is also true: Lambert errs anthemic, producing life-affirming pop rock and sorrowful balladry while keeping her life out of focus.

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