"Dreamy,
keen-witted meditations on love and life..."
"Snelling's
velvety tenor glides through these eight intensely personal
meditations on life and love, alienation and interface.
His dreamy piano wafts cozily,
delightfully, along ridges and vales of jazz chord changes. This musical
setting provides enlivening contrast to Snelling's razor-sharp
wordplay and rhyme,
his explorations of the depths to which the human spirit can plunge -- "I
threw my goddamn TV in the brush/that showed the broken bodies when the students'
dreams were crushed/beneath the tanks for asking more/than crusts of bread
and such" -- and its heights: "...a world where no one ever hurts/but...mothers
giving birth." (Both from "Postcards from Diane")
The imagery is evocative and useful, with wordplay that's
heartfelt and clever and yet not jejeune: consider "faces of children stained
with fear." (From "Faces On The Train") Piano and lyrics ocassionaly
intersect with gleeful intention, as when a staccato chord repeats under each
quick syllable of the word "jittery" in the line "Punks and violence
junkies, jittery and proud...." ("Faces On The Train." In other
words, Snelling isn't just baring his soul while playing exquisitely styled piano;
he's having fun, too."
- Vesna Kovach/Music Reviewer
“Steve
Snelling has a gift for storytelling…The depth of lyrical
meaning and immense musical scope throughout the entire ‘Perfect
Strangers’ CD is awesome.”
-
Len Rogers/Stonewall Society
“an
EXQUISITE album” - J.L. Bueno/Otra
Musica
“From
the first track, ‘Daniel,’ which draws upon his
work with violent, developmentally disabled adolescents,
one senses a mind willing to probe the deep mysteries of
life.”
- Jason Serinus/iMusic
“There
are some fantastically written jazz-chord driven songs here,
especially the absolutely brilliant second half of the CD.
A kind of middle ground of Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright.” -
Christopher/CD Baby Reviewer