Shannon Wright

From the more delicate, spare sounds of her Flightsafety debut, Shannon Wright has quickly turned a year on the road into this cabaret scream of a record. Time on stage has clearly taught her to make herself heard over clinking glasses and chattering idiots, and Maps of Tacit reflects that not in volume, but in impact - no longer accepting an intimate, inward-looking portrait, this sounds at times like an outward accusation. The hints of doomed carnival music that fade away on "Dirty Facade" provide some hints through the foggy cloud of obscure lyricism - behind the happiest of appearances, some darkness lurks. Alternately, not all the doom and gloom is tragic. Adding to her impressive vocal skills and her ability to portray lyrical meaning without being too overt, nor sounding like a pretentious high schooler, is the fact that she plays almost everything too, including guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. Sit up and take notice when she opens for Dirty Three on their current North American swing.