Dial Tone

For all the light, airy images that grace the Andrea Ball brand—her MySpace, her Facebook, and the cover of her new album, Dial Tone—a dark determination runs through her songs. Ball’s latest is heavy on minor-key piano from the get-go, and that fierce gloominess rarely lets the sun break through. The brooding title track finds the singer-songwriter chanting, “put on your parachute-chute-chute-chute,” a distant and dour lyrical cousin to that famous line about an “umbrella-ella-ella-ella.” Tick-tocking claps and crunchy, tense guitar break into the spooky “Dismantled,” with terse piano and pulsing bass suggesting an unexpected lean toward epic post-rock. “Glass Wall” has all the warmth and mystery of a live jazz recording, and offers the closest thing to a ballad on the album.

“Courage” is Dial Tone’s best song, with hyperactive hi-hats clicking away into glitchy static and pizzicato strings that evoke images of a wintry movie set. “Courage, where have you gone?” Ball’s husky voice pleads over tricky handclaps and booming, right-next-to-you drums. Ball is keenly self-aware without being narcissistic, and the result is charming—her voice and her delicate piano work evoke British songwriter Carina Round or a less depressed Emily Haines.

The album has its share of cringe-worthy moments, too, but they happen mostly when Ball steps away. (Dan Craig’s cheesy backup vocals on “Bright Side” don’t accomplish much.) Her musical persona, when upfront, commands rapt attention—there’s a distinct desperation in her voice, sweet but occasionally ragged and baring fangs. On “Blind,” amid a ghostly musical saw and shy strings, Ball sings forlornly, “You were indispensable, and I had tired eyes.” The definite darkness that permeates Dial Tone is never oppressive—like a drizzly day that never leads to a downpour.