Hut
Alternative Rock, 2003

How annoying that when I actually buy the rare CD that catch my attention nowadays, most of the time they tend to suck lemons and become a positive testament as to why P2P filesharing the only way to live sometimes. I have no idea who Stephanie Kirkham is or what kind of music she makes, and since there is no listening booth at my favorite record store, I just assume from the cover art that she’s some fancy new age singer and hope for the best.

Stephanie Kirkham is a young lady with an annoying high-pitched voice singing uninspired formulaic Lilith Fair type of anthems while channeling the words of her journal into her songs. Ergo, gems like “He dissected her like one of his many engines, studied the parts but missed the poetry” (That Girl) prove that sometimes girlish jottings in one’s private doodling are best left in journals with the pressed flowers and not put to unimaginative music.

Dull, cloying, and utterly insipid, That Girl is strictly for teenage girls who feel that it’s no longer cool to like Dido and prefers a more obscure alternative to channel their feelings that the world owes them an apology, a grand love, and a cute hunk. But unlike Dido who at least knows how to make decent tunes, Ms Kirkham comes off as an earnest young lady in need of a better muse.