These Words are My Diary Screaming Out Loud

A couple of months ago, iTunes offered up a Single of the Week by a new artist, Anna Nalick. The song, Breathe (2 AM), was mellow song that you want to blast while driving on a warm summer night and has been on heavy rotation in my life ever since. Unfortunately, the subsequence album took about four months to come out, which it finally did this week. Any wonder to why people try to download such albums before they are released. Luckily VH1 has been streaming the whole album for the last couple weeks, so I've had a chance to preview it just incase this was a one hit wonder situation. And after a few listens I can tell you Anna Nalick is far from Tubthumping territory.

Wreck of the Day starts out with Breathe and doesn't let down from there. Most of the songs conjure up images of some of the best female singer-songwriters of recent memory. With a piano driven album, Vanessa Carlton would be an easy comparison. Citadel sounds like something out of Jewel's Spirit era (still remains her best work), while In the Rough sounds more like and Americanized version of a Corrs song. Hints of the Cranberries, Sarah McLachlan and Michelle Branch can also be heard throughout her debut.

Other songs of note on the album include Catalyst a song where your heart will break when listening to especially during the line "God, don't know if I'm strong enough now." The song chronicles the self doubt of a woman who just got out of a relationship. Nalick also goes where some of my favorite songs have gone before, space, with Satellite joining Dave Matthews Band (Satellite) and Counting Crows (Recovering the Satellites). And like the other songs, Anna's Satellite is a song about looking to sky for some help. The highlight for me was the closer, Consider This, a bouncy song that sounds like it should be perform at a Cabaret (could be a good video idea). It even contains lines like, "So lay your hands over me, and feel what you only see, but don't bother wasting your time if you're trying to change me."

The one song that slips up a little is Forever Love which might sound more a home on a Mandy Moore album, not that there is anything wrong with that. Overall, it is hard to find any major flaws in the album.

Wreck of the Day gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.