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Shawna Virago - Last Night's Sugar

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Listening to Shawna Virago can be a lot like hearing Against Me! for the first time after Laura Jane Grace fully embraced her femininity. She looks like a girl, but she still sings like a man. However, there's a world of difference between Against Me!'s Springsteen-inspired punk rock energy and Virago's strummy, folkish rock.

A song like "The Ballad of Miss Suzy Texas" can make the listener restless after a while. Shawna has a distinctive, emotive vocal style, but a song like "The Ballad of Miss Suzy Texas," and the one that immediately follows it, "Last Night's Sugar," just don't have the kind of dynamics that keep the sonic interesting. Once you hear the first verse and chorus, you've pretty much heard it all. Key changes and bridges are two elements that help create memorable pop song moments, and these are two elements this album, to a large degree, severely lacks.

Virago has a compelling story to tell. Last Night's Sugar, sadly, is not the album that effectively tells it.

Shawna Virago - Last Night's Sugar
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