Holy Smokes
After nine albums and 18 years with her two older sisters as the Roches, Suzzy Roche has become the first one in the group to release a solo album. As the funniest and most charismatic of the three on stage, Suzzy seems more likely to sustain a solo live show than her siblings. She was the least impressive songwriter of the three, however, possessing neither the sharp verbal insights of oldest sister Maggie nor the musical know-how of middle sister Terre, who handled most of the guitar parts. On "Holy Smokes," Suzzy wrote 11 songs herself and put music to an old poem by her mother for the 12th tune.Too many of the songs are neither funny enough to make one laugh out loud nor serious enough to make one swallow hard. Instead they occupy that broad middle ground of somewhat amusing, somewhat touching songs about the trials and joys of growing up a smart, middle-class American woman. Such songs can be found by the bushel in the folk coffeehouses snuggled into suburban churches and restaurants all over this great land, and nothing about the melodies or language here separates these songs from the pack.Suzzy alludes to an old heroine, Laura Nyro, in the title of "The Second Coming of Eli" and comes up with a funny-sad break-up song in "Crash." Stewart Lerman, who produced the last three Roches albums, does the same for Suzzy, and northern Virginia's Steuart Smith adds his graceful electric guitar. But the album comes closest to the old Roches magic only when Maggie sings harmony on the tongue-in-cheek parable, "Rules."--Geoffrey Himes