Ari Hest
The Green Room Sessions

(Columbia)

First Appeared in The Music Box, January 2007, Volume 14, #1

Written by Nalini Persaud

Coming 28 months after the issuance of his debut Someone to Tell, Ari Hest’s five-track EP The Green Room Sessions is meant to reinvigorate interest in his career. Truth be told, it contains a few treasures of its own. The most notable of these is Them, a song on which Hest sings in a sexy but disconcertingly ominous voice as he mixes covert words and allusions to form a staggeringly quiet yet undeniably chilling threat. The ever-present pounding of an insistent bass line conjures the sensation of a heart that is throbbing uncontrollably from a rush of adrenaline, and the tune is delivered so viscerally that one can only wonder to whom he is referring. Elsewhere, So Slow and Just as Well serve as promising preludes to his forthcoming endeavor The Break-In, and a sturdy cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Tell Me Lies makes for a wonderful surprise. The entirety of The Green Room Sessions was recorded in Hest’s apartment in Brooklyn, and it exudes an ambience that is on par with the lo-fi intimacy of a singer-songwriter set from the ’70s. By working on his own, Hest has succeeded in yanking his music from the digital sterility of a modern day recording studio, and fans most certainly will be salivating over the prospects for his upcoming release.

Ratings

1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2007 The Music Box