Jennifer O'Connor

If NYC singer/songwriter Jennifer O'Connor has a fault, it's her too-frequent tendency to melodically and lyrically stalk whatever feeling she seeks to explore in song. Once or twice per record she'll really cut loose with something mercurial—"Turn It Down" on 2006's Over the Mountain, Across the Valley, and Back to the Stars or "Daylight Out" from the forthcoming Here with Me (both on Matador)—but generally, O'Connor teases hooks and emotional gravity from her country-ish compositions gradually. Her latest batch of tunes is especially modest and introspective—given the smoldering natural heat of her voice, one hesitates to say insular—taking on mistruth and yearning adoration as central themes. All of which is fine, in a low-key MOR sense, but let's hope against hope that, someday, O'Connor opts to rock at full, iPod-TV-ad blare for the entirety of a record. With Son, Ambulance, and the Pines. 21+.
Fri., July 18, 9 p.m., 2008