TRES CHICAS: Mostly just ordinary

Tres Chicas
Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl
Yep Roc
U.S. Release Date: March 7, 2006

"It's safe to say Tres Chicas is no longer just a side project," the trio's Web site proclaims. But after listening to their second CD, "Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl," I can't help thinking that maybe the Chicas should have stayed a side project after all.

The three Chicas -- Caitlin Cary (Whiskeytown, two solo CDs, duet CD with Thad Cockrell), Tonya Lamm (Hazeldine) and Lynn Blakey (Let's Active, Oh Ok, Glory Fountain) -- each have beautiful voices, plenty of cred on their instruments, and sass to spare. But somehow on "Bloom" it adds up to boring. Not bad, really, just incredibly boring. I listened to the CD over and over, waiting for something to grow on me, to grab me -- but ... nothin'. I really couldn't call any of the songs, or even snippets of a song, catchy, and the lyrics were such that my mind kept wandering to things like "I wonder what Chan Chan the Boogerman from elementary school is doing now, and if he still picks his nose and eats what he finds?" and "Geez, I really need to get some new shoelaces" even when I was trying really hard to focus on the words in the songs.

Sonically, "Bloom" is all soft, no edge whatsoever. Certainly no sass. The three-voice harmonies are nice, but completely unadventurous and sometimes so overly layered as to be just heavy on the ears. The whole CD, produced by Neil Brockbank (Nick Lowe), seems heavily engineered, pushing out any feeling of intimacy I suspect one might get from a simpler treatment of the same songs. The engineering does give the album sort of an oldies, classic country feel, but it also contributes to a syrupy sweetness that makes your teeth hurt just a few songs into it. I'm all for sweetness, especially with female singers, but this CD is like eating a whole bag of marshmallows all in one sitting. Sweet is much sweeter when you steal it a bit at a time out of the pantry when you think no one's looking.

Tres Chicas' debut recording, 2004's Chris Stamey (Whiskeytown, Matthew Sweet, Tift Merritt) produced "Sweetwater," was likewise sweet and thickly layered, but somehow those songs let something pure shine through. They had a little edge, a little quirk -- just enough to keep things interesting. But all that seems to have died on the vine in the making of "Bloom," making me think the Chicas, as a group, have passed their shelf life.