Music

Album review: Mary Lambert’s ‘Heart on My Sleeve’

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Annie Zaleski

Four stars

Mary Lambert Heart on My Sleeve

If you know Mary Lambert from her hook on Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Same Love”—or its unofficial sequel, “She Keeps Me Warm”—you’re only getting half the story. The Seattle singer-songwriter’s first full-length, Heart on My Sleeve, demonstrates her shape-shifting abilities, from gospel-tinged balladry and Regina Spektor-y whimsy to kicky early ’90s R&B-pop and even earnest piano covers of ’80s hits (Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl”). Better still is the uneasy, darkness-infused electro tune “Ribcage”—with its hypnotic, pounding-heartbeat underbelly and contributions from Angel Haze and K.Flay—and her homages to hero Tori Amos’ fiery piano rock and vocal trills (“Chasing the Moon,” “Sum of Our Parts”). Not coincidentally, Eric Rosse, best known for his early-’90s collaborations with Amos, produced Heart on My Sleeve.

Most impressive here is Lambert’s exquisite vulnerability—from naked romantic pleas to plainspoken admissions of regret and more carefree admissions of self-empowerment, she comes off as complex, imperfect and utterly charming.

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