Amy Millan: Honey From The Tombs : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Canadian chanteuse Amy Millan is one-fifth of the indie-rock outfit Stars, a band whose gentle, soul-shattering ballads have no doubt become the soundtrack to countless twentysomethings' breakups by now. On her solo debut, Millan abandons the chamber pop of Stars in favor of earthy, down-home fingerpicking and hard-knock lyrics. On "Baby I," Millan makes like Loretta Lynn, singing, "Baby, you turned a clear night sky into a dark, dark hole/And when I see a sunset now I'm just lookin' at a painting in a cheap hotel." "Headsfull" is a rollicking kiss-off that melds unapologetic guitar fuzz with weary tough-girl vocal delivery that recalls Exile in Guyville-era Liz Phair. The gorgeous, shoegazing twin love songs "Skinny Boy" (in which Millan delivers the near-perfect line "You've got lips I could spend a day with") and "Wayward and Parliament" put Honey over the top. Unlike her work with Stars, Millan's album plays less like a score for a broken heart and more like a boozy cowgirl hymnal. We'll drink to that.