有的唱片当你放进音响里，按下play键，当第一道声音滑出，你已无可救药地爱上了它。你闭起双眼，一遍美好景色浮现眼前，也许是湛蓝的晴空，也许是泛红的晚霞，你甚至闻到了青草的味道。这音乐有着和耳朵贴近的频率，和灵魂契合的温度，你不断播放，成了整晚房间里唯一的背景音乐。 Emily Sparks于2002年推出的What Could Not Be Buried就是这样的一张专辑。也许你寻寻觅觅已久，如今它就在这里。 Singer/Songwriter 在摇滚族谱里一向占有重要的地位，优秀的Singer/Songwriter不胜枚举,Nick Drake，Jeff Buckley，前阵子刚过世的Elliott Smith都是在乐迷心目中占有重要位置的杰出歌者。他们共同的特点是诚恳，直接，轻易地打动你最善感的神经。 Emily Sparks身为女性独立歌者，不论在音色的调配，旋律的编写上都有自己独到的见解。有人将她比喻为Mary Lou Lord的传人，但Emily Sparks的音乐流露出的是更梦幻的气质，更直接的情感传递。 身处美洲大陆，Emily Sparks的音乐却同时受到英美两地乐手的影响。用简单的吉他播弹时有Cat Power的影子，虽然Emily来得更为甜美。从第一首歌Just as well的slide吉他也可以看出Mojave 3，Mazzy Star这类梦幻乡野摇滚对她的影响。第五首歌Cry for her的反馈电吉他，第七首歌Day in Day out的迷幻电风琴会让人以为听到的是Spiritualized的女声民谣版。第八首歌Nothing I can say苦涩微甜的旋律仿佛又带我们回到了Belle & Sebastian最辉煌的时光。 Emily Sparks不加修饰的稚嫩嗓音就像多年不见的友人，迫不及待向你诉说旅途中望见的美好事物。发自内心，诚实相对，搭上变化多端的巧妙编曲，让这久违的深夜对谈来得更加丰盈踏实。而Emily Sparks也用实力告诉你， What Could Not Be Buried不只是另外一张还不错的女声民谣而已，她还能填满你 更多的想像与期待。 by Matt Fink A wonderfully realized set of low-key indie folk seamlessly marrying the traditions of Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, and Shannon Wright, Emily Sparks provides one of 2002's greatest breakthrough debuts with What Could Not Be Buried. Although she doesn't appear to have any connections, in either genetic or musical bloodlines, to her namesakes in the Handsome Family, she has arrived at a musical vision that owes debts of inspiration to a few obvious influences but ultimately retains its integrity to emerge as something wholly unique. With an endlessly endearing whisper serving as her vehicle in communicating elegiac narratives on vulnerability and loss, she balances waltzing, moonlit ballads with ethereal pop and stormy indie rock, all with a sense of intimacy, wide-eyed naïveté, and understated cleverness. Still, any delusions that Sparks is a songwriting ingenue are clearly erased by the subtle and sophisticated arrangements that are constructed around intricately hypnotic melodic phrases. And while she does come close to coffee-shop pop a few times, with the gorgeously intertwined acoustic guitar and piano in "Downtown Café" serving as a fine example, she generally smothers her more pristine pop tendencies with electronic creaks and scratches. All in all, it's a set of tunes whose pervasive sense of longing and loneliness makes you want to wrap yourself in a blanket and put the disc on repeat.