Frida Hyvonen

Like a sort of Swedish Dusty Springfield, Frida Hyvonen is a bodacious white soul woman who sings from her delicate gut. But Hyvonen has a few one-ups on her female singer-songwriter predecessors. She writes her own brutally honest lyrics, produces and plays her own piano (this is a piano 'n' singer album that features only small blasts of groovy drums and horns on "Come Another Night" and "N.Y."). She's exposed and desperate on "Djuna!" and then just as easily becomes a playful sexpot with the lesbian love song "Valerie" and the harmonic "The Modern." Until Death Comes is a tight 10-song effort, and Hyvonen was smart to create it that way. The musically simple and self-indulgent piano confessionals can be a tad too literal and repetitive, but the majority of the songs draw the listener in with their curious stories and melancholy melodies.