Her voice reaches a new level of enchantment with its husky soulfulness this time around as well. To some ears, this potent pairing may offer one prediction of her vast, creative future. Plenty of raw emotion and great sounds. Every so often an album comes along in a particular genre that ups the ante for everyone else. These days it's rare to find an album that holds my attention from beginning to end.
Albums have their high points and low points.
On the CD player it's easy to skip the bits that don't excite. Les Sampou at the Wessagussett Coffeehouse, Sea Street and Route 3A, Weymouth Les Sampou Crosses Genres with Intensity Discerning music fans hearing Hingham's Les Sampou for the first time might wonder why her albums aren't selling in the millions. Few of today's top songwriters produce more compelling or distinctive music than Sampou Sampou has always straddled genres, battling stereotypes as a folk singer rooted in the blues who's able to craft some memorable rock pieces. Her latest album, on the Flying Fish division of Cambridge's Rounder Records, is widely hailed as her most fully realized, but her first two CDs were certainly arresting for their unvarnished honesty of expression. Sampou's lyrical gifts might even be a bit too sharp for the Top 40, her cinematic eye for detail balanced by incisive wit and unflinching candor.