Betty Soo - Heat Sin Water Skin

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 23 / 3 / 2011

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Two things make you sit up and notice as soon as the opening song, ‘Never Knew No Love’, begins to worm it’s sultry charms into your head. The first is the guitar sound, which is unmistakably Gulf Morlix who also handled the production duties here, and the second is the equally impressive and powerful vocals of Betty Soo. Those vocals come as something of a surprise to anyone who has yet to hear the work of Betty Soo; the young innocent-looking images of Betty on the CD cover are at odds with the sounds that she produces, even when she is sounding at her most vulnerable as on cuts like the outstanding ‘Just Another Lover’ the power and emotion in her vocals still shines through. The work of Gulf Morlix, it has to be said, is all over these eleven songs. As a producer Morlix has certainly left his mark on these recordings and the fact that he plays acoustic and electric guitars as well as pedal steel and bass throughout the album just reinforces the input he obviously had in ‘Heat Sin Water Skin’. But even a producer/musician as respected as Morlix would be lost if the songs weren’t up to standard. Thankfully, Betty Soo, who wrote ten of the songs on ‘Heat Sin Water Skin’ (the one cover being ‘Lonesome Whistle’, a Hank Williams/Jimmie Davis composition) is one hell of a songwriter as well as a singer. Soo tackles a wide range of subjects over her ten original songs; ‘Who Knows’ details the harrowing times inhabitants of those countries that have been hit by storms, hurricanes and other disasters face. With the news that’s surfaced over the last couple of weeks the song takes on even more poignancy (“Who knows if there will be a place to come home too…”). At least those who inspired Soo to write this song had some kind of chance to get away. A lesser singer would be swamped on this song by the blistering guitar work from Morlix who not only delivers a scorching solo, but whose guitar throughout the song matches Soo’s vocals for intensity. Here, on the fourth song in, not for the last time we are given to think that here is a musical marriage made in heaven. But to go back to the opening song, ‘Never Knew No Love’, where Soo proves in the first few seconds that she is currently one of our most powerful female singers, is a swampy soul stew that is completely at odds with most of the songs that follow. Todd Wilson’s warm organ sounds mix well with the usual stunning Morlix guitar runs to make the opening song a highlight but also an unrepresentative track to open the album with. The following song, the aforementioned ‘Just Another Lover’, has one of Soo’s prettiest melodies with Gene Elders' violin weeping buckets on what is one of Soo’s best compositions in the country/folk vein. It’s on songs like this where the Lucinda Williams comparisons Soo had drawn in the past are more than justified. Lyrically Soo is superb throughout the album but with lines like “Am I a well you once drew from? Just a place to wet your tongue” the song also rates as one of Soo’s best ever songs lyrically too. ‘Whisper My Name” follows and again it’s a superb slice of folk/country/pop where Gulf Morlix’s vocal touches add just as much texture and emotion as his guitar playing on this song does. For some reason, and it’s not for any similarity in their vocal style, the work of Nanci Griffith comes to mind here. It’s this mixture of folk/country and pop that makes songs like ‘Forever’ so appealing; while it’s not a great departure from the sound Boo and Morlix construct on ‘Whisper My Name’ it’s a winning formula so why should they abandon a sound that’s just so attractive? Lyrically Soo again proves here just how strong she is with words; detailing a marriage that is nearing its end the song is touching without being overemotional. ‘Get Clean’ sees Soo returning to the swampy sound of the opening song and, while these more up-tempo songs show how well the combination of Soo’s vocals and Morlix’s guitar work, it’s on the slower songs that Betty really shines. That said, the all-too-short interplay between guitar and organ on the closing of this song makes you hit the replay button. ‘Never The Pretty Girl’ and ‘What We’ve Got’ both take themes that anyone who is a fan of female singer/songwriters will be familiar with, but Soo adds her own slant to the stories and again her vocals match or even suppress those who have come before her. The closing song, that cover of ‘Lonesome Whistle’, is heartbreakingly beautiful. It shows that even without any embellishments from Morlix’s electric guitar Betty Soo can make a song with a sparse backing so appealing. At the end of the day it’s all in that voice. ‘Heat Sin Water Skin’ an album of the year already and we’re only in March.

Track Listing:-

1 Never Knew No Love
2 Just Another Lover
3 Whisper My Name
4 Who Knows
5 Forever
6 Get Clean
7 What We've Got
8 Never The Pretty Girl
9 Still Small Voice
10 Next Big Thing
11 Lonesome Whistle

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