Heather Miller

Item: Send Me An Angel
Author: Bert Gangl

Send Me An Angel

(2000)

Reviewed by Bert Gangl

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Label KMG RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2000

adult contemporary ccm pop rock r&b

Heather Miller entered the Christian music scene in the fall of 1998 with her debut album, Once Upon a Time. The release, which consisted mostly of radio-friendly light pop music, sold respectably and generated the hit single "Do You Know Now." For the most part, the new release, Send Me an Angel, trades in the bubblegum pop of Once Upon a Time for a folkier, more organic setting. Miller's voice, which falls somewhere between the atmospheric consistency of Jewel and Shawn Colvin and the rootsy, folk-rock feel of Jennifer Knapp, fits quite well within the new musical setting, particularly against the gritty, minimalistic folk-rock of songs like "Angel" or the acoustic texture of the lovely "All My Needs." And the alluring combination of folky, acoustic guitar and swirling orchestral accompaniments makes the beautiful, achingly melancholy "In Your Arms" the ideal vehicle for Miller's accurate and piercing vocal talent. But as competent as she may be on songs like these, Miller's excursions outside the folk-rock domain are met with mixed results. While her voice is unquestionably more than adequate for the adult contemporary pop of "We Will See Him," her copious vocal talent is lamentably buried beneath the song's heavily layered backing vocal treatments and overly glossy, wall-of-sound production. "Thinking of You" pits Miller awkwardly against a barricade of beatbox type electronic percussion in an unwieldy, and mostly formulaic, slice of modern day teen dance-pop. And, although it is virtually inevitable that any remake of Russ Taff's classic "The Way Home" will pale when compared to the original, Miller's version is nonetheless a particularly listless, and decidedly nondescript, adaptation of the 1989 landmark.

To her credit, where she helped pen only one song on her first release, Miller has stepped up her writing duties significantly for Send Me an Angel, writing or co-writing all but one of the songs on the new release. Miller's writing style is coherent and sincere, and her stark lyrical approach is particularly well-suited for straight-ahead pop-rock of numbers like "Angel" (Oh, it's the wind that moves through the trees/ Oh, it's the peace I feel on my knees/ Oh, it's the hand that reaches me), where her keen sense of word timing and parallelism perfectly underscores the song's already infectious rhythm. But the lion's share of the wording on the sophomore effort unfortunately winds up being a mere reiteration of what has already been said by any number of other artists. The poignant premise of "Life to Me," (Spent all my life/ Trying to find the truth/ You came here from Heaven/ To set me free), for instance, is regrettably overwhelmed by its amateurish wording, while the featureless writing of "Tell Me Why" (I know there's safety in Your hands/ There's no peace without You) only serves to highlight the song's plodding tempo and unengaging melody. Still, all of this is not to say that Send Me an Angel is a substandard release. Indeed, the album is a mostly pleasant work with agreeable songs, a goodly supply of catchy pop hooks and an undeniably sincere sentiment. But the record's weak lyrics, more often than not, provide a poor backdrop for what would have been an otherwise stellar vocal performance. And the album's overly imitative song structures offer Miller mournfully little room to distinguish herself amidst what is by now a veritable host of sound alike artists.

3 tocks