Sound: Thao’s music is deceptive. She takes dark, pained lyrics with a playful sense of humor and wraps them up in light, folky/poppy indie rock. Her vocals can be breezy but they’re anchored with a hearty weight (kinda like Chan Marshall/Cat Power) and each track throws in an ambitious blend of instruments including fingerpickin’ banjo, warbling horns, easy-strumming acoustic guitar, shimmering piano and more.
Heavy Rotation tracks: “Swimming Pools”; “Bag of Hammers”; “Beat (Health, Life and Fire)”
Medium Rotation tracks: “Big Kid Table”
Recommended: If you like Cat Power’s voice and the instrumentation on her last album The Greatest, but feel she can get too bleak, Thao could be the peppier alternative you looking for. Unfortunately the second half of the album drops off a bit, after a solid first half, but still, Thao has arrived as a promising newcomer.
Grade: B

Hear Thao in rotation on 3wk.com

Listen to Tracks/Buy Music:
On amazon.com