Margaux Reynolds

Artist: Margaux Reynolds
Album Title: Soon
Review by Heather Miller-Rodriguez


A native New Yorker and music school graduate, Margaux Reynolds has managed to capture a perfect blend of her professional training and self-taught skills to create a fresh and polished debut. Crediting the sudden passing of her father as the event that led to finding her true writer’s voice, Margaux’s authenticity and depth of emotion is evident in every note of Soon.

Evoking the romantic charm of a French carousel à la the movie Amélie, the first notes we hear on the album are from a toy piano. As “The Wind Up” progresses, carefully layered piano, strings, harmonies, and handclaps surprise and delight the ear at every turn. With the voice of a breathy, sweet ingénue, Margaux examines the current status of an uncertain relationship and wishes she could wind things back to the time before it got complicated. In a more traditional piano-pop style, lush with harmonies, cello, and clever lyric twists “The Greatest Thing” follows a small-town girl keeping the dream alive in the big city. The “Singer-turned-actress-turned-waitress turns tables on a night shift” is a bit world-weary but unwilling to give up on all her plans, having seen the unhappiness in others who let their “dreams slip away”.

With peppy handclaps, a chorus of whistling and autoharp, the instrumental opening of “Spinning” has a happy, neo-vintage flavored sound that make it easy to imagine this single joining the ranks of an Ingrid Michaelson hit, backing a hip television show scene or a fun fashion commercial. A twinkling glockenspiel and “saccharine sweet” vocals sugar-dust the track about awkward attempts at making cake and lemonade for a new lover. Luckily the whirlwind of the summer romance overcomes the failed gestures as Margaux sings, “We don’t care, the thought was there, and summer’s here, it’s everywhere.” The bittersweet “San Francisco” takes a turn for the slow, moody, and dramatic. Starting with just the piano, understated drums kick in at the second verse. The cello sings the emotions underneath the keeping up of appearances in a story of grasping at a long distance relationship as it slowly crumbles.

Set in waltz time and featuring an accordion, both of which lend a wistful sense old-fashioned romance, “Fortune Teller” seems to chronicle a history of mismatched lovers. A boy from LA moves to New York and falls “in love with a smile that broke his heart and stole his wallet.” That same smile is the object of another’s affection, and he needs to step up to the plate or lose her. Then, sounding the way you might hear it in a church, “Rest of My Life” makes a perfect wedding song, with simply a piano and cello, and an instrumental interlude where a true classical flavor shows through. Margaux’s vocals drip honey over the lyrics, “This is where it starts, two roads merge into one. This is where it starts, two lives blend into one.”

With a slightly more dissonant piano, sad strings and vocal percussion that mimics brushed drums, “This is Harder” stumbles through the crushing experience of being dumped. With aching vocals, Margaux sings the shock of finding that the pain of witnessing an ex with a new lover is harder than the work it took to try and maintain the relationship at end. The musical theater-tinged “Holiday” finds Margaux refusing to let go of a relationship where it looks like the guy is “gonna go confuse glitter with magic,” by choosing the more splashy girl. Margaux struggles with just how hard she should hold on or whether to let it go. The rich vocal counterpoint at the echoes the spinning thoughts of a confusing situation where heart and mind are in conflict.

“Chandelier” has a sound much like indie pop-princess Rachael Sage, who also has an album and song of the same name, but there is no danger of confusing Margaux’s “Chandelier” with Rachael’s. Never actually mentioning the titular object, the lyrics wind through metaphors of fragility and light in a life fighting depression. With violin and cello as mournful as the sound of horns of “Distant Trains,” the final song seems to be a farewell note from someone running away from a life that has lost all of its old luster. Whether that will be accomplished by stepping on the train or in front of it is not completely clear, but the heartbreak is unmistakable. The male vocal harmonies weaving through the song give the impression of a movie scene where a character begins to read a note left behind, and the voice of the writer fades in as the images flash on the screen to fill in the gaps of the words unspoken.

Ranging from playful to heartbreaking, the well-rounded Soon touches on nearly every corner of the heart without manipulating or mood making. Margaux has clearly rounded up a talented team of musicians to support her first album, as no element outshines or overtakes the rest, but rather comes off as carefully and intentionally placed to best support the song at hand. With talent as engaging as Margaux’s, it will be surprising if we don’t hear her tracks pop up on the bigger radars soon.


Review by Heather Miller-Rodriguez
Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

- Review by Heather Miller-Rodriguez

Artist: Margaux Reynolds
Album Title: Soon
Review by Heath Andrews


Vocalist/songwriter/pianist Margaux Reynolds describes her 2010 album Soon as a "thoughtful, playful folk-pop record about loss and optimism." This is a fair description of her debut full length CD, but it doesn't do justice to her serene voice and often tragically beautiful arrangements. The ideas of loss and optimism, the concepts of being thoughtful and playful, are actually quite divided on the album. Soon begins playfully with optimism but before it's halfway through, it turns introspective and sorrowful and remains that way through to the album's end.

Reynolds begins her album with "The Wind Up". With a singing voice somewhere between Vanessa Carlton and Sarah McLachlan, she immediately displays her ability to convey emotion. The song itself is based around the piano and grows in subtle fashion to include shakers for percussion, handclaps, violin and some vocal harmonies. On later tracks, the violin becomes the main backing to Reynolds piano, but here, its presence is mild and allows the song to become almost bouncy. The next track, "The Greatest Thing" is absolutely exquisite. Kicking off with a brief drum fill, Reynolds sings about a "Singer turned actress turned waitress turns tables on a night shift". As she continues to describe the life of the song's character, the visual she paints is melancholy and by the time the song ends, bitterly complete. The chorus, where said waitress insists "I'm gonna be the next best greatest thing you'll ever see" is so heartfelt that it's hard to tell whether this is just hopeless denial given the tone of the song, or an honest assertion of optimism. Regardless, it's impossible to not sympathize with her. Reynolds perfectly captures the mix of desperation and hope, driving the point home further with an arrangement that could reduce someone to tears.

On a lighter note, "Spinning" is the most jovial song on the album, complete with clapping, whistling, lyrics about cake, Monet paintings, and the improper use of a microwave. Reynolds is by far at her most joyful as she rattles through her lyrics at a brisk pace. The change in tone is welcome considering the remainder of the album is much more somber. While it lasts, "Spinning" shows that Reynolds is capable of more than what the ballad heavy album would indicate.

The problem with having the more upbeat songs front-loading the album is that it doesn't help break up the monotony of the rest of Soon. Reynolds is a very effective songwriter and lyricist, but the formula wears thin after a while when the songs are juxtaposed like this. "San Francisco", "Fortune Teller", "Rest Of My Life," "This Is Harder", and "Holiday" are all slow to not quite mid-tempo ballads that revolve around the interplay between piano and violin. The resulting sound is beautiful, but the similarity in sound can cause the songs to run into one another. When heard on their own, it's easier to hear the individual beauty of each song. For example, the chords Reynolds plays through the latter half of "Rest Of My Life" are rich and powerful, highlighting the intensity of the singer's desire to be in the arms of the love she sings of. "This Is Harder" features a similar powerful backing but Reynold's lyric feels vulnerable and isolated when she sings "How am I the only one who thought that this could never happen?" in regards to the break-up mentioned in the lyrics.

Fortunately, the album ends on a unique note with the song, "Distant Trains". It seems to stick to the typical formula until about fifty seconds in where Reynolds is accompanied by a male vocalist. Aside from that change, the song is very similar to the theme and composition of the tracks that preceded it. However, the addition of another factor in the music is sufficient enough to make the song stand out. "Cuz I don't think I'm coming home tonight...", Reynolds remorsefully sings before the song climaxes in a painfully beautiful harmony.

Margaux Reynolds is an exceptional talent as a musician, songwriter, vocalist, and composer. Every song on Soon is well crafted and performed with precision. Reynolds' formula for her emotional ballads is engaging but the pacing on the album could do with some variation; really, there could stand to be another number like "Spinning" here to vary it up. Other than that, Soon is positively lovely and a great debut for a very promising artist.


Review by Heath Andrews
Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
- Review by Heath Andrews