Reviews: Victoria Day:

CHARTattack | Review: Victoria Day

It would be a mistake to dismiss Melissa McClelland's third album as unfocussed.

Sure, Victoria Day is stylistically all over the place, touching on bluesy alt.country ("Glenrio," "When The Lights Went Off In Hogtown"), piano ballads ("Segovia") and hell, even jazz (the backing horn parts on "Victoria Day [May Flowers]"). But it's far from unfocussed and, if anything, showcases McClelland's breadth as a songwriter.

McClelland has come a long way from the singer/songwriter-y, beige-ish folk rock that marked 2004's Stranded In Suburbia debut, and it's really hard to find anything wrong with Victoria Day. But the syrupy sweet, overly dramatic strings on the jazzy "Cry On My Shoulder" could probably have been omitted since they clash with the upright bass parts and make the song sound cheeky.

McClelland's quirky humour, which she first exhibited on Stranded In Suburbia's "Glimpse Into Hell" (about what would happen if there was a hole in the wall between the strip club and church that are next to each other on Toronto's Bloor Street West) also comes out much more on Victoria Day.

There are horn parts throughout the record, and you have to love the lyrics on "Seasoned Lovers," which features Ron Sexsmith. "It's pouring rain/And I don't have a jacket/You're a modern man/So you keep yours" McClelland wryly intones on the track, before ending with, "The rain makes everything/Look so grey and heavy/Just like our love." On the one hand, it seems like the type of poem a 16-year-old would write in their room, but it comes across as anything but when you consider the humour that's injected into it.

Though husband Luke Doucet can still be found everywhere on the record (he produced it, plays six different instruments and sings backing vocals), McClelland has truly stepped into her own with this disc. Hopefully it will garner her the wider audience she deserves.

- Kate Harper, CHARTattack 04/13/2009

Hour/Ottawa Xpress | Review: Victoria Day ***1/2

Remember Dusty Springfield? Back in the day she managed to bridge country, soul and standard sugar pop (Burt Bacharach style) without missing a beat. It may not have been earth shattering, but it's a feat few have managed to emulate with any semblance of success. Which brings us to Melissa McClelland's latest entry into the recording world. After a particularly fetching album (Thumbelina's One-Night Stand) riddled with enough snappy nuggets to place McClelland among Canada's elite songstresses (a formidable group these days), she follows with the far-reaching Victoria Day. It's an ambitious potpourri of styles delivered with panache and a maturity belying her unadvanced age. Containing yet another set of killer singles in Glen Rio and Seasoned Lovers, it is an odd, adult contemporary album filled with lush orchestral pieces and even some jumpy swing tunes. This may confuse her fans, but anyone channelling Judy Garland and Dusty in this day and age deserves some props.

- John Sekerka, Hour/Ottawa Xpress 04/09/2009

Voir (French) | Review: Victoria Day ***1/2

2009 s'annonce bien chez Six Shooters. Après nous avoir livré un sans-faute de Jenn Grant, le label canadien récidive avec cet album de Melissa McClelland. Avec Victoria Day, le folk canadien fait un petit tour dans le Deep South, se mêle à un blues un peu sale, se pare de guitares abrasives, se frotte au dixie des années 50. Parmi les moments forts de ce disque réalisé par Luke Doucet, le mari de la belle, notons Seasoned Flowers, joli duo avec Ron Sexsmith et un Victoria Day (May Flowers) triomphant qui nous donne envie de passer le prochain long week-end à La Nouvelle-Orléans.

- Christophe Bergeron, Voir (French) 04/16/2009

FFWD | Review: Victoria Day

Soft, natural and unassuming, Melissa McClelland’s flirtatious romps and soulful laments are more than capable of rivaling Sarah McLachlan’s piano-and-vocal reveries. Dipping into the western tradition for classic-sounding cuts like “Del Rio” and teaming up with Ron Sexsmith for the duet “Seasoned Lovers,” McClelland’s song selections contrast with and complement her more modern compositions, such as “Segovia.” Switching things up again for the plodding spiritual “God Loves Me,” with its “Ode to Billy Joe” sense of tragic loss and skewed guitar riffs, she takes things in a slightly off-kilter PJ Harvey direction. Exploring a flare for the dramatic on each of Victoria Day’s dozen songs, the songwriter (and Luke Doucet’s significant other) reveals herself to be a musical chameleon of considerable talent, easily changing tempo and personas to suit each story. The range displayed on both renditions of the title cut — the ’50s pop “April Showers” version and the “May Flowers” version with its Dixie swing — typify this emerging artist’s unique, multifaceted approach.

- Christine Leonard, FFWD 04/09/2009

Vue | A brand new Day: McClelland unveils her latest record

Sometimes you just need to get out of the comfort zone to get a little work done. If you're a songwriter, that might mean trying out a new chord. Or, it could mean picking up and moving to a whole new country. That's what Hamilton's Melissa McClelland did, along with her husband Luke Doucet, for six months durng the three years between her last album, Thumbelina's One Night Stand and her newest, Victoria Day, when the two of them moved to Nashville. It wasn't a spectacular time for McClelland, but she did get some writing done while she was there.

"It was kind of lonely, actually," she remembers. "It was OK, but Luke and I spend most of our time on the road so we don't get that much time at home, so I spend a lot of my life homesick anyway; so to have our home be this completely new place—it was a fun time but I was also longing for familiar surroundings and I kind of locked myself away during that time and just did a lot of writing and played my guitar a lot.

"There's such a wonderful musical history there that we had a chance to draw from, but the industry is also really huge there and I think it kind of has a negative effect on the art that's being made there, so it kind of rubbed me the wrong way a bit in that regard," she continues. "It was nice to come home to Canada and Toronto, and there's such a thriving music scene here and it's all about making great music and good songwriting—it's all about the craft, it's not about trying to write the next country hit."

But while McClelland was hit by the longing for her Canadian home during her time in Music City, and the music machine weighed heavy on her, she took away some experiences that she is quick to admit are handy tools for a songwriter.

- Eden Munro, Vue 04/23/2009

Eye Weekly | Review: Victoria Day ***

Victoria Day is full of lyrical surprises and tongue-in-cheek throwbacks to its ’60s country influences. But among life-in-Marlboro-country numbers like “Glenrio” and “Segovia” (which give the impression of being at least partly pastiche, with lines like “She’s been flirting with the law / He’s got his hand right up her skirt”) we also get plenty of references to McClelland’s current home base, Toronto. The singer’s fourth release and first for Six Shooter, Victoria Day swings freely among styles without sounding muddled, from classic country tracks like “A Girl Can Dream” to the vaudevillian “I Blame You,” even squeezing in a couple of avant-garde instrumental interludes. Always richly evocative, especially in the late night drive–worthy “Brake,” Victoria Day is a musical journey that is worth taking.

- Cate Simpson, Eye Weekly 04/15/2009

Metro | Review: Victoria Day ***1/2

Now’s the time to stock up on summer albums for those long drives to the cottage, and Melissa McClelland’s latest deserves a top spot on the iPod. The Hamilton-based songstress delivers a lush collection of layered country tunes and orchestral jazz-tinged numbers, all delivered in her spectacularly honeyed voice. While it’s not Earth-shattering stuff — she plays it fairly safe on most tunes — it’s still a comprehensive and moving listen. This album is a bonus for fans of Luke Doucet, who produced the disc and is married to McClelland, as his twangy sheen is all over the record.

- Bryan Borzykowski, Metro 04/16/2009

Winnipeg Free Press | Review: Victoria Day ****

In a departure from previous recordings Melissa McClelland is taking a trip back in time on Victoria Day, a wonderfully textured offering rooted in country, roots, blues, rock 'n' roll and even big band. McClelland's exceptional vocal dexterity displays the power of Patsy Cline combined with the sensuality of Peggy Lee. Her lyrics echo Tom Waits -- "He's got his hand right up her skirt / All the way to Arkansas" -- as does the production by her husband and guitarist Luke Doucet.

Although McClelland wrote almost everything here, her tunes sound as if they could have come from the Great American Songbook. It should also be mentioned that Doucet's expressive guitar work here, like Brian Setzer, influenced by Bill Haley and Carl Perkins, is nothing short of spectacular.

Victoria Day may be an annual holiday, but Melissa McClelland's Victoria Day is worthy of celebration all year round.

- Bruce Leperre, Winnipeg Free Press 04/25/2009

Reviews: Thumbelina's One Night Stand:

Toronto Star | It is a bit of an understatement to say that Melissa McClelland's "Thumbelina's One Night Stand" offers a change in musical direction. A change in musical directions, maybe.

The new album has a couple of songs that would fit right alongside the relatively straightforward, hooky pop of 2004's Stranded in Suburbia. But this time around, the 26-year-old Burlington-bred singer-songwriter also ventures into country, blues, jazz and Tom Waits-influenced gutbucket cabaret.

- Vit Wagner, Toronto Star

The Globe and Mail | The album's title is alluring, and there's no letdown once inside. Toronto's Melissa McClelland is a coolly expressive singer, a gorgeously gritty lyricist, and a vivid painter of pop noir. Album producer and guitarist Luke Doucet adds a Tarantino vibe -- perfect for the border-song Passenger 24, with a train 'full of diesel and American scum.' On the dirge-y Go Down Matthew, there's a shackled bride with violet eyes -- and on and on, dark imagery that makes reading the words alone worthwhile. There are fleeting resemblances to the styles of Feist, Jolie Holland and Sarah Harmer, but McClelland is shadier and unforgettable.

- Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail ***1/2

NOW Magazine | Stranded In Suburbia, her debut for the upstart label Orange (home to Jim Bryson and Lindy), is packed with sparkling pop hooks that wouldn't sound out of place beside mainstream radio darlings like Michelle Branch or Vanessa Carlton. But beneath the shiny, happy Leave It To Beaver sheen of the songs, there's a Lynchian knife edge of suicides and drug addiction, pretty white lines of powder on rec-room coffee tables, screwed-up relationships and an urgent need to be anywhere else but there, all told with a precocious, world-weary spin. One thing about McClelland - she's got a lyrical knack for detailed, unflinching portraits with an aching sense of time and place.

- Sarah Liss, Now Magazine

Eye Magazine | Ah, another pretty, nice McGirl singer/songwriter. Aren't those always on special in this country? Well this one's not all nice. She's not signed to Nettwerk. And she may just be the first in a while not trying to be the next Lady Sarah. McClelland's third solo disc is a flight of fantasy-meets-drag-race, twinkling and winking while it flirts with disaster. The easy-listening style she calls "pop noire" has mood swings into countrified slide guitar and cabaret pomp, but plays mostly as a gentle, graceful, dinner-party record... if you were poisoning one of your guests. (Just a little. For fun.) McClelland's mean streaks ("College street is filled with creeps, trophy girls, expensive teeth") give her an edge over her Mc-sisters and evocative production by her partner Luke Doucet lets her vocals shine. Smart, lucky guy.

- Lisa Ladouceur, Eye Magazine

Toronto Sun | Melissa McClelland on her new album: "It's blues one minute, country the next, pop the next. ... I don't know, I just had fun doing it that way, and I'm OK with it now." When Melissa McClelland started working on her third album, Thumbelina's One Night Stand, the local singer-songwriter was determined to stick to one musical style and resist the temptation to experiment with every instrument available to her. But something miraculous happened along the way, and McClelland ended up making an album that ventures all over the musical map, from old-fashioned country and gospel to bluesy and jazzy pop-rock.

- Mary Dickie, Toronto Sun

Uptown Magazine | This is what Jewel might have become if she hadn't gone to pop-radio hell. Twenty-four-year-old Melissa McClelland is a singer-songwriter at heart - she's been doing it since she was four years old - but she also isn't afraid to kick in a little distortion, play with drum loops or experiment with her sound. The result is a mixture of slow, woman-with-guitar tunes (Glimpse into Hell) and uptempo plugged-in tracks (Good as Gold) that push the folk/guitar-pop envelope. McClelland's gentle, clear voice could use a bit more power at times but, when she employs both her upper and lower registers (as on Pretty Blue) the results are both sexy and impressive. McClelland shows flashes of lyrical brilliance, and her skills will only increase with time. A follow-up to 2001's self-titled release, this disc shows an artist successfully discovering her sound.

- Mike Warkentin, Uptown Magazine

The Gate | Melissa McClelland is a wonderful, rare breed of musician that actually makes me feel like she cares about her music. While there are lots of musicians who obviously love music, or need it, or thrive in it for status or something equally compelling, McClelland catches something vital in her sound that makes me believe she really is caught up in the music.

From the start her elegant and charming songs are sweet and brimming with an uncomplicated demeanour that's both unconventional and disarming. Each song is well crafted, thanks in part to McClelland's writing, but I also have to think that Luke Doucet contributed a great vibe as the producer.

- W. Andrew Powell, The Gate

July 13 Denver, CO
Comfort Dental Amphitheatre
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July 17 Chicago, IL
First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
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July 20 Noblesville, IN
Verizon Wireless Music Center
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July 21 Detroit, MI
DTE Energy Music Theatre
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July 24 Toronto, ON
Molson Amphitheatre
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