Maryanne Rice CD Review

Maryanne Rice
Think Twice
Self-released
**
Too many genres detract from Maryanne’s amazing vocal style
Maryanne Rice’s first album features a collection of personal and emotional songs. Maryanne’s music covers many genres from country to pop and blues to jazz. For this album Maryanne has teamed up with producers/songwriters John DeMarzo and Dennis Nardantonio. Dennis plays electric, rhythm and lead guitar on the album and John plays piano and acoustic guitar. Maryanne’s voice is a pleasure to listen to. It is intense and rich. She easily projects emotion through her stylish vocal style. The Real World gets the album off to a quality start. Maryanne’s vocals are heavenly on this slow paced ballad. Touch The Way They Should is a classy country number with an up-tempo beat. The title song Think Twice fuses together many musical styles including country, jazz and pop. Like The Thought Of Missing You has a Caribbean vibe running through it, but is predominately a folk/pop song. Crime is a country rock song with an airy sound echoed throughout the instrumentation. No Less A Stranger is more of a pop song. This song has a strong narrative feel. Gone is a lovely country song with intense charming vocals. Innocence is a rock/alt-country song. This song is full of angst and has a definite edge. My Last Love Song is a beautiful slow song with a soulful jazz/country sound. This song is packed full of emotion and Maryanne’s vocals really bring that emotion to life. The Final Sunset has a blues vibe running through it. This is another classy song with enjoyable vocals. There are many amazing songs on this album but there are too many genres covered here I feel and this is where Maryanne lets herself down. Maryanne has a lovely voice but bouncing around from country to rock, pop to jazz and so forth detracts from what Maryanne is trying to achieve. There is plenty of potential here but I feel like Maryanne has gone to the cupboard and thrown all the ingredients into the pot at once.