Artist: Lijie
Album: Roam
Genre: Singer/Songwriter
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A whiny, girly singer-songwriter Lijie is not. Like a porcelain Hummer H2, her lyrics are fragile yet forceful, echoing a heartache familiar. Roam (2004), the first full length album from China-born Lijie (pronounced “lee-jay”), sounds like a Sarah McLachlan/Fleetwood Mac hybrid at times.

On Roam, Lijie’s poetic lyrics melt with gentle guitar sounds and her own delicate piano playing, creating a vivid landscape of hurt and healing. The album’s feeling of tenderness is bisected in “Bar Song,” an ode to inebriated sexual carelessness and its predictable remittance.

Lijie’s sultry, soothing voice is a faultless vessel for the lyrics that won her a “Finalist” award at the 2004 UK Songwriting Contest. In “Blue,” a sense of despair looms with her lyrics: “I lose myself I lose my mind/And it’s you/that always leaves me feeling black and blue.”

In the song “Roam,” the Olympia, Washington-raised soulstress cries out, “and I may be naive/but not too proud to leave.” Listeners can only hope this applies to her singing/songwriting career.

- Review submitted by Tim O’Rourke.