Absolute
Pop, 2008

Singer-songwriter Helen Boulding’s New Red Dress is like a little girl’s journal put to music. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, as the likes of Dido, Alisha’s Attic, and Lisa Loeb had made musical soundtracks out of dreamy young girls’ LiveJournal entries before.

Ms Boulding has a soaring rich voice that makes the tracks in this CD a pleasure to listen to even when the words she is singing could be on the corny side. Gentler tracks like This I Swear and I Always Look This Blue make pleasant bedfellows with more dramatic anthems like Sleep Walking and What a Fool.

But the stand out track, if you ask me, is the fabulous Way to Go, a catchy sing-along song that is just screaming to be belted out at the top of one’s voice while speeding down a street one sunny day. Nothing else on the album comes close to matching this fabulous slice of pop perfection, which is a pity as this makes the rest of the songs pale in comparison. I like this album, but I find myself often reaching for the remote to replay Way to Go. I can’t get enough of it! Help me, somebody.

Helen Boulding, huh? I’ll remember that name.