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Press
Usually when I hear the term singer-songwriter, I run away screaming, but Heather Duby’s third full-length really caught my attention. On this album, the chanteuse worked with Erin Tate of Minus the Bear, whose most recent album Menos El Oso bears the electronic flourishes, unpredictable changes, and off-kilter rhythms found on Duby’s self-titled release. Longtime producer Steve Fisk (Nirvana, Low, the Wedding Present) and collaborator-bassist Bo Gilliland also had their hands in the record’s hook-laden sound.
Duby recalls the likes of Mary Timony and Shannon Wright with her unique songwriting style and rock sensibilities. Minor keys, layered harmonies, and dark melodies form the meat of the compositions, while sparse drums, guitar accents, and minimal programming provide the backbone. Her voice has roughened since her delicate debut, Post To Wire, developing a scratchy, yet clear tone similar to a less aggressive Pat Benatar. (Duby actually pays homage to Benatar on the hidden track, a cover of “Love Is a Battlefield” that sounds as if it was recorded live on a whim.) Standout tracks include the plush, almost danceable “Never Even Made a Voyage,” the rhythmic “Still Rough,” and the haunting “Dullard Or Are You a Breakfast Alcoholic?”
Comparisons to Wright continue on piano-driven songs like “Over and Under Arrangements,” on which she sings, “Memory, memory, you’re a mess / You’ve given up on love for less,” and the beautifully quirky, cello-accompanied “Gone Aground.” The only inconsistency is “Would Have Liked You (I’m Pretty Sure),” a jangly, lo-fi track with a repetitive organ riff and a high-pitched vocal sample. Other than that, the appropriately titled Heather Duby is her best album yet.
- venuszine.com/articles/music/sounds/1996/Heather_Duby
Philadelphia Weekly
In between the fall of Nirvana and the rise of Death Cab for Cutie, scads of super-talented Seattle acts made great music but failed to break through nationally. Many quit, but thankfully singer/songwriter Heather Duby didn't, and she's only gotten better in the seven years since her sparkling 1999 debut Post to Wire. Back then she operated in the mold of Tracy Thorn or Beth Orton, draping her resonant voice and pensive lyrics over electronic textures. But on her terrific self-titled third album Duby's piano-heavy arrangements are more organic, and her vocals are grittier and more confident. There's a gothic tinge in her work, though it's more Bronte than Siouxsie, and her touring ensemble- which includes members of Seattle math-rockers Minus the Bear- brings added rhythmic coplexity live. (Michael Alan Goldberg) - Philadelphia Weekly
Splendidzine - Steve English
Thank heaven for rebel girls. Few would have faulted Heather Duby for taking the road well-traveled by many of her post-Lilith Fair sisters and recording another set of gentle electro-pop for post-millennial dinner parties like her solo debut, 1999's Post to Wire. Perhaps sensing that one Dido is one too many, the Seattle-based singer/songwriter has gone the other way, peeling the plastic shrinkwrap off of her songs and trading in that peach JC Penney turtleneck for a battered, second-hand raincoat. Smart move, considering that Come Across the River's overcast ambience is as icy as Pacific Northwest rain in November. Duby's music has visited the dark side before, but the murky tones of her second solo offering find her picking out a shady lot and building herself a little black bungalow there. Loss, absence and resignation are the recurring themes here, while piano, live drums and cello replace Post to Wire's breaks and beats, lending an appreciable gloom to the proceedings. Her husky voice still hangs in the air like your breath on a cool day, and it's even more compelling now that it isn't competing with so many electronic bells and whistles. If art does indeed imitate life, it sounds like Duby spent the time between albums pulling herself out of one romantic car wreck after another. Darkness seems to have become her muse in the years since her debut, and although it probably wasn't much fun to experience, it has affected her songwriting and arranging skills positively. Tales of broken relationships and absent lovers dominate ...River's narratives -- in "The Big Dwindle", she literally cleans the emotional baggage out of the closet. Picture a plain-talking Tori Amos mentally vivisecting an affair gone bad while systematically devouring a glass of wine and a pack of Marlboro Lights and you're halfway there. You may come for the downcast songs and melancholic arrangements, but you'll stay for Duby's otherworldly murmur of a voice. Much more understated here than on her earlier material, she keeps her voice to herself and barely raises it above a whisper, as if she's worried that someone in the next room might overhear. Fragile, vulnerable and powerfully feminine without ever sounding girly, its timbre hints at a deeper power that could topple buildings if sufficiently provoked. By no means a miserable mope-rock wrist-slasher, Come Across the River is dark, rainy pop done very well. The clouds break every once in a while to let in a shaft of sunshine, but the album's best songs come from the cold, damp shadows. Duby's indie-pop is so chilly you'll want to grab a sweater. -- Steve English
- Steve English
Discography
Post to Wire - Subpop Records
Elemental EP -Subpop Records
I Must Have Been Blind- Manifest Records
Give the People What We Want- Subpop Records
Come Across the River- Sonic Boom Records
Heather Duby - Sonic Boom Records
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Bio
Heather Duby grew up in Portland and after attending two years of college at Evergreen in Olympia, left school in pursuit of music making. After a few years she began recording Post to Wire with producer Steve Fisk for Subpop records. This first release was met with much critical acclaim and was reviewd on NPR's All Things Considered. An EP with Reggie Watts and his collaborators in the group Elemental soon followed.
Shortly thereafter, however, Duby became ill and had to have surgery in her throat while trying to assemble her second full length release. The subsequent effects of this changed the kind of work this artist would make for the rest of her music making endeavors.
With time and rest Duby completed her second full length, Come Across the River, released by Sonic Boom records, to high praise and more critical acclaim. Many reviewers found the second release to be much stronger and more personal than the previous album, and Duby herself was satisfied that this was work she could confidently stand behind.
Her third full length, the self titled Heather Duby, again released by Sonic Boom records, was the culmination of the different records to reveal a more mature, more confident songwriter who had realized the sound of her own voice.
In January of 2010, Duby will be recording in her new landscape of New York, to which she recently relocated, with producer Matt Bayles. The new songs are surely some of her strongest yet and reflect the indefatigable determination of an artist intent on coming back and remaining. Truly the adage, that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger applies in this circumstance and Duby finds herself grateful to once again be making the music she first set out to play.
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