Review Summary: A good debut EP from a young singer-songwriter with lots of potential.
Idol is one of the worst things on television. Sure, I can think of worse programs (Big Brother, for example), but Idol isn’t far off in terms of sh
itty television. Most of the ‘talent’ the show produces has been pretty standard, if not boring. Lisa Mitchell is one such contestant, placing sixth in 2006 series of Australian Idol. I remember catching one of her performances at the time, and I was quite impressed with what I saw, but I quickly forgot about her once she was voted out. Anyway, two years on, I was played a song from the somewhat familiar name of Lisa Mitchell (I had forgotten her name as well), and after a quick google search I realized it’s the same girl.
Said One to the Other is Mitchell’s first release, four tracks of soothing acoustic guitar and piano, coupled with Mitchell’s soft and delicate voice.
With such a small emphasis on the actual music,
Said One to the Other relies quite heavily on the performance of Mitchell as its driving force, and although she has a unique and overall sweet voice, Mitchell’s performance isn’t as strong as it should’ve been. She sounds somewhat similar to Sarah Blasko, although the age difference is very noticeable in Mitchell’s voice, being born in 1990. She has a very light-hearted voice, easy on the ears and very well suited to the type of music she plays. All four tracks are quite slow-moving and mellow, and don’t really change from this style. Although this makes for a comfortable listen, it’s not terribly exciting. The biggest problem with the EP is that it goes by without leaving any trace behind; in other words, there really aren’t any memorable melodies to be heard, except perhaps on ‘Incomplete Lullaby’. Mitchell’s voice can be a delight to listen to, and the two middle tracks are reasonably strong in comparison to the other two, but unfortunately it’s not quite enough to really leave a big impression. ‘Incomplete Lullaby’ follows a very cheery piano tune, and consists of some truly heartwarming lyrics, which are wonderful coming from Mitchell’s subdued voice. ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Alice’ is the most upbeat song on the EP, based around a little fiddly acoustic medley, and lifted up by several cheerful piano chords. The other two songs follow similar patterns, mild and mellow, but are on the whole not very remarkable.
It may be just that I have an attachment to Mitchell’s voice, but I enjoyed the EP. You may be thinking a 3 is a low score for something which I think is quite good, but there’s not more I could do with a four song EP of which only two tracks are objectively good. Even so, Mitchell is an artist I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on in the future.
