Breathe Them Deep into Your Lungs

It is hard to go platinum nine times with your debut record and be virtually unknown to most Americans. For Missy Higgins, the platinum status of her melodic, piano based The Sound of White was just in her home of Australia but barely made a dent her stateside. Her follow up On a Clear Night has been available to her Aussie countrymen for almost a year but is just getting its American release today.

The album cause a stir down under as the new album was more of an acoustic guitar driven sound than its predecessor. The transition from album to album was smooth as On a Clear Night starts off with the piano enhanced Where I Stood before Higgins stands up from the bench and straps on the guitar for most of the rest of the record.

The best of these acoustic guitar songs is Steer an upbeat, toe tapping sing-a-long that wouldn’t have been out of place a decade ago on the Lilith Fair current but still feels current for today. And it is isn’t just Missy playing the guitar on the album, Neil Finn, who may know better as the dude from Crowded House, shows up on Peachy a bouncy kiss off from a former boyfriend.

Elsewhere on the album, Higgins expands her repertoire. Secret is a slow burning, album bluesy song where she provides some sultry lyrics to. Then the album caps with the folksy Forgive Me, a low-fi track that sounds like it may have been recorded in a bathroom, but that only adds to the mystique of the song. Undoubtedly you will be hearing more of Higgins on television shows that features lazy writers who have to insert musical montages because they run out of anything interesting to write as the most of the songs are television ready. In fact you may remember Where I Stood from an episode of Smallville from earlier this season.

Song to Download - Where I Stood

On a Clear Night gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.