Sylvie Lewis

Saw her opening for the Greencards at Club Passim and thought she had a brilliant voice, but was maybe weak on the instrumental skills--her guitarwork was probably the most basic I've seen onstage. A week of unshakeable earworms later, I'm solid on this conclusion; the instrumentation on her CD is boring and kinda canned-sounding, but it doesn't interfere with her voice too much, and it's the voice that's gangbusters. I can't quite pin it down, but she reminds me of older vocalists in how three-dimensional and lustrous her voice is. Her lyrics are mostly on the standard love-and-relationships theme, but just wry enough to make me forgive 'em for that.