Mara Lee Miller has the sort of voice that cannot help but to dominate a song, but that is not always for the best. All throughout Baby, her second full-length release under the name Bosque Brown, she comes across like Texas' answer to Portishead vocalist Beth Gibbons, with her cold, ghostly timbre wrapped up in a strong country twang that is as intriguingly incongruent as it is limited. Though her narrow, expressive range can yield some very moving moments in individual songs, it effectively paints her into an aesthetic corner, particularly as she insists upon singing over some extremely stark arrangements. Without the sort of textural and rhythmic options available to Gibbons' collaborators in Portishead, Miller's thin, tinny vocals are forced to the center of every cut on her album, resulting in an exhaustingly uniform style and tone.
With only a few exceptions, Miller's songs are far better at suiting a pre-existing mood than evoking one, but that mood is somewhat hard to pin down. The record is most obviously influenced by the darker side of old-school country music, acoustic gospel, and traditional southern folk, but in its modern context, her work fits nicely alongside Cat Power, Scout Niblett, and Beth Orton. Even still, it's not easy to figure out the most ideal conditions to hear these songs. Whereas Chan Marshall's output can be divided into two basic categories-- the listen-intently-and-feel-her-pain recordings, and the music that can sit comfortably in the background during brunch-- Bosque Brown occupies the awkward no-man's land between those extremes, which has a way of making the record feel purposeless even when it communicates sincere, relatable emotions.
While the songs on Baby essentially sound the same, they are not all of equal quality. Several of the selections feel somewhat directionless and insubstantial, though the majestic march "Oh River" and the heartbreaking album opener "White Dove" have immediately ingratiating melodies that emphasize the strengths of Miller's voice. "This Town", a relatively upbeat tune led by simple, jaunty piano chords is another highlight, and it mercifully adds a touch of levity in the midst of an otherwise dour and bleak set of tunes.
It's not exactly a coincidence that the best songs on Baby happen to be the numbers that boast memorable instrumentation. Just over half the tracks on the album open with Miller's unaccompanied vocals, and most seem like compositions that were written a cappella, with guitars, pianos, and percussion added later on to fill out the sound. Left to her own devices, Miller's melodies tend to meander, but the fuller arrangements give them shape and power. "Oh River", the album's most successful piece, benefits greatly from dynamic drumming that gives Miller's voice a nice lift up into its chorus, allowing the entire song to crest dramatically along with her vocal part. This is a marked contrast with "Texas Sun", which conveys an appropriate sense of desolation but also sounds very much like a band lagging behind its singer as she goes off and does her own thing. It's difficult to listen to Baby without wondering if an undue amount of emphasis has been placed on the vocal performance. Too often Miller seems like a talented character actress who has somehow been cast in a lead role against type, and the very qualities that would make her charming and memorable in a smaller role become unflattering when exposed to too much spotlight.
