Patti Scialfa: Play It As It Lays : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Stop me if you've heard this one before: So there's this singer from New Jersey, used to kick around on the club scene, writes songs about ordinary lives and fast cars. . . . OK, so Patti Scialfa shares more than just an address with her illustrious husband. But what makes her third album, Play It As It Lays, much more than another Springsteen-wanna-be project is the insightful female perspective she brings to these ten songs. Again and again, she declares her independence: "I'm no whipping doll, no ball and chain," she sings on "Like Any Woman Would," elsewhere adding, "I'm not gonna dance, no puppet on a string." In her day job, Scialfa has a voice that's often compared to Ronnie Spector's brassy wail, but on these tightly focused, grown-up vignettes about sin and salvation and the hard-fought struggle for honesty in a relationship, she slurs and bebops like Rickie Lee Jones. With a crack rhythm section (including a dude named Bruce playing on almost half the tracks), Play It As It Lays reveals a woman on the other side of the tunnel of love -- confused, a little scared and ready for another spin.