Imbued with Brandi Shearer's smoky voice and classic, blues-inflected songwriting, Close to Dark is by turns languid and lively, an excursion into dreamy worlds simmering with understated sexuality. The restrained arrangements and deft production by Larry Klein (Madeleine Peyroux, Joni Mitchell) add a delicious tension to the songs and compliment perfectly Shearer’s less-is-more vocal style.

For these sessions, Shearer assembled well known players from the Brooklyn... more