AMG Review of Hush

Andrew Hamlin
All Music Guide

Starting at the end, Tom Waits' "Midnight Lullaby" -- on which Dawn Clement stands up from her piano and sings, bass plunking the changes and Hans Teuber's flute providing counterpoint -- shows Clement's voice as sweet, subdued, and largely artless, with a tart edge suiting the subtle bite of the lyrics. Think of a lower-ranged Maureen Tucker with the singsong dialed down. Fetching, but a universe flip from the voice coming out her fingers. "Early Morning Rose" starts in a gospel cadence, gaining a countertexture from José Martínez's low-tuned toms. "Big Fat Blues" spills out of the conventional form for that exercise and climaxes with a rhythm-stabbing showdown between Clement and Martínez -- though bassist Geoff Cooke impresses throughout the record by forsaking, except for "Big Fat Blues," the traditional walking bass in favor of shapes that encapsulate the time rather than stating it. Clement eloquently shares space with her bandmates, no more so than on the epic "Tension Tamer," but her solo excursions show her capable of emulating a whole band, condensing, expanding, and rippling lines on her right side and mining new rhythms with her left. Her first album as a leader proves a rich, multi-veined sundae with a cherry on the bottom.