Heather Nova: South : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Bermuda-born Heather Nova feels sand, waves and breezes where other singers and songwriters know only concrete and buildings. Such grounding makes for a seductive vibe, but on South, Nova's fourth album, she and her producers do not rely on atmosphere alone. Instead -- modernizing a great pop-soul-rock recording style that only Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" has gotten right in the last fifteen years -- they nail songs with unshakable melodies, choruses, bridges and harmonics; the technique, as on the great soul records, uses structural certainty to access emotional mysteries. The songs sing, from the nuevo-Eighties "Heaven Sent," wound up by Swedish producers Peter Kvint and Simon Nordberg, to the delicate and tough "When Somebody Turns You On." And "Welcome," a song rich with vocals and co-written by Dido, is an instant classic. Holding everything together is Nova's seaside soprano, full of as much poise, grit, fireworks and sweetness as the South itself.

JAMES HUNTER
(RS 898 - June 20, 2002)