Singer/songwriter Treva Blomquist isn’t trying to change the world. Instead, the 36 minutes of her debut release, Plain Vanilla Me, are quite the opposite: ten gentle, rainy-day love ballads beautiful in simplicity and telling in their honesty.
Blomquist, a Seattle native turned Murfreesboro local, evokes the likes of Jewel and Patty Griffin as she combines dreamy acoustic guitar melodies and soulful vocals behind sugary songwriting.
From the album’s affable opening track, “I Wish,” Blomquist sets the tone for a modest, yet surprisingly personal, album chronicling the successes and failures of love. Continuing this theme, the pop-soaked “Life Goes On” reflects the heartbreak of a past relationship as well as offering resolution to overcome it.
As Blomquist continues to explore this theme of love, her biggest shortcoming comes to surface: familiarity. In songs like “Nothing Left to Give” and “What’s a Girl to Do,” both Blomquist’s musical and lyrical presentation are too comfortable to be memorable.
This causes the record to feel stuck in the confines of the traditional female acoustic songwriter. While the songs on PVM are clean and well rehearsed, most tend to mesh together to form a static album failing to push any sort of creative boundary.
This level of familiarity, however, is not necessarily a bad thing, and even seems appropriate for Blomquist’s aim of the album. As she lulls in the closing track of “Who I Am,” she sings Can you and I just sit here? We’ll just talk awhile and you can just be you and I can just be plain vanilla me. I’m just asking you to understand who I am.
By presenting herself in such straightforward terms, Blomquist offers her listeners a respectable degree of intimacy, which plays more like an invitation into her heart, than a record.
Like a conversation with an old friend, Blomquist’s music is gracious, forthcoming, and in my opinion, absolutely worthy of a listen.
To hear Treva’s music come to the Plain Vanilla Me CD release party at The Basement, Thursday May 11 at 7 p.m. or visit trevamusic.com.
