Twilight

Album Review

If ever there was an album that deserved to come garnished with whipped cream, Twilight is it. But then, condiments or no, Blueberry's debut is about as delicious as music gets. The cosmic creaminess of Gwen Snyder's vocal delivery is as suggestive and succulent as Lady Miss Kier's, and her outstanding songs, which dance somewhere between disco and straight-up funk, have a soulfulness so liquid that they can't help but be intoxicating. ?Onlyness,? with its brass-blown echoes of Deee-Lite and four-on-the-floor groove, winks and coos at you clean through to its last note, and it sets the pattern for the entire affair. "Bellbottom Bike Accident" flaunts its sexiness even more candidly—whatever the lyric "ride my banana seat back downtown" means, sign me up—and its Larry Graham-worthy bass riff and filthy Rhodes piano accents could make even a blaxploitation tune blush. Even better is the slow-roasting "False Alarm," which is?well, "stimulating" is the only PG word that springs to mind. Soul music typically struts and seduces, and Twilight does plenty of that, but it also seethes and sparkles (the mussy-haired "Arise," the sleek valentine "Pocketbook of Love"), demurely teases (the title track), and offers pleasures ("Out of This World") of a much headier variety. On the other hand, if it is pure escape that you prefer, Blueberry runs the bath water with the dreamy electronica of "Remember Heaven," then provides the bubbles too with "Love and Protection," a lullaby that'll fog the mirror. The only thing on the album that doesn?t quite mesh smoothly is the stark piano ballad ?Only When I Do.? On its own, the song is gorgeously exposed, and it has an emotional undertow to match the other songs, but stylistically it brings the proceedings to a brief pause. Still, Twilight is but an eyelash away from immaculate.