It is still winter here in Madison. This morning, it was 6 degrees while I was walking to campus. The snow scraped off the streets and sidewalks has been piled up, most are higher than my head. As I write this, flurries are starting to fall.

Understandably, I’ve turned back to my winter music collection. When I want to surrender to the cold and the ice, I dig out Julie Doiron‘s Heart and Crime, released in 2002.

Doiron seems like she went to the studio grudgingly. She’d rather just turn around and crawl back in bed, pull the covers over head and lay there, shades drawn. She seems to know there are people she could call to make her feel better, but she shouldn’t or won’t. Instead of making the decision, she’d rather just continue feeling torn.

It’s gloriously self-indulgent.

The centerpiece of the album is Doiron’s vocals. They are layed over a light electric guitar, a soft key line, and drums that are just brushed. At times, it seems like she barely has enough energy to get the vocals out, they trail off. The texture is heavy with sadness, lethargy.

The lyrics match the mood. Take the typical track “Too Much.”

“Maybe I should call a taxi and have him take me to nowhere./Maybe I should call a taxi and have him take me straight to you./And me, I’ve never been ignored like this.”

For anyone who wants to wallow in winter rather than wait, with hope, for spring that seems only to get further away – this album is a must have.

Doiron is on Jagjaguwar. She’s followed Heart and Crime with a number of solid albums, most recently Woke Myself Up.

Myspace: Julie Doiron
MP3: Wintermitts
MP3: Sending the Photographs
MP3: No More

(travis)