http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/music/lend_rabbits_an_ear_ISdn7QL5GqpmXiQMYuNERNLend ‘Rabbits’ an earALBUM OF THE WEEK
Vanessa Carlton "Rabbits on the Run"
*** 1/2
After her 2002 debut album, “Be Not Nobody,” and its chart-topping single, “A Thousand Miles,” Vanessa Carlton’s career stalled to the point that many tagged her as a one-hit-wonder. “Rabbits on the Run,” her fourth studio album, sweetly rescues her career and stands as validation of her singer/songwriter skills.
The 10 songs on the album highlight her ability to make ethereal, Enya-like tracks that get close enough to pop for radio spins. With her lyrics, Carlton, 30, shows herself to be a thinking woman — influenced, she’s said, by the scientific writings of physicist Stephen Hawking and the pastoral children’s classic “Watership Down,” from which the CD borrows its bunny title.
If that sounds too brainy for its own good, the disc is accessible in both meaning and catchy melodies that reference Lilith-style rockers such as Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette. Album opener “Carousel,” a piano ballad layered with bright, jangly bell accents and hand-clapped beats, is the record’s top tune, with words that say life is cyclical. The album’s other standout is “Dear California,” in which Carlton really flexes her pop muscles with a hook-filled sayonara to the Left Coast that could have been borrowed from the Sheryl Crow songbook.
