A Drop in the Ocean? I Think Not

Alison Sudol creates A Fine Frenzy – so she has named her one woman act that has recently taken flight in the musical world with her debut album One Cell in the Sea. At 22, the Seattle born songstress has made a graceful entrance onto the music scene and she seems to be putting down roots.

Sudol’s eclectic mix of brooding melodies, strikingly un-noticeable beats, and mesmerizing lyrics are anything but “frenzied,” yet the near oxymoron suits the fiery red-head with the soothing voice; and her debut album is just as double-edged as her chosen pseudonym.

One Cell in the Sea reaches deep into the depths of heartache and hope with tracks like “Almost Lover,” “Ashes and Wine,” and “Near to You” – testimonies, all, of lost and uncertain love – de-typified by the straightforward and unbiased way in which she approaches the subject. The melancholy is broken periodically with whimsical, fairytale-esque tracks like “Ranger” and an upbeat lion-and-the-mouse type song called “The Minnow and the Trout” that reminds us “What we’re made of/was all the same once/we’re not that different after all; we were one cell in the sea in the beginning”.

A Fine Frenzy, with her sonorous vocals and sometimes quirky lyrics, is easily reminiscent of Regina Spektor and Sara Bareilles – two of the leading female artists in an Alternative genre that is becoming more and more popular throughout the U.S. Sudol, like Spektor and Bareilles, brings even more to the Alternative table with her experimentations with atonality and major key variations that stemmed, most likely, from her own curiosity as she taught herself to play piano.

Her diligence in her self-teaching is apparent. On the album, she is accompanied by an assortment of instruments: the low hum of an electric bass, the light twang of an acoustic guitar, the tenuous vibrations of a cymbal, the soft “swish” of a wire brush on a snare drum – all are present, but vastly understated. Most of the tracks on One Cell in the Sea are attuned primarily to the keys of Sudol’s piano.

The expressiveness of Sudol’s voice lends an ironic reality to some of her music. Near the end of her soft-spoken ballad “Whisper”, the word becomes a barely audible sigh, and in “Last of Days” her voice fades unceremoniously to an ethereal end.

Though her musical style is not entirely unique, her subtly dynamic lyrics, emotive voice, and surprisingly direct approach to over-used subject matter prove that A Fine Frenzy is, in fact, stand-alone material – and One Cell in the Sea is only one of many more albums to come.