I've been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to start this review. I'm still not sure if this is the best way or not, but you know, it's not the way the review is written, it's about the music it's being written about.

When I received Crystal Brandt's CD a few weeks ago, entitled Bessie's Last Stand, I was very excited to pop it in and give it a listen. Listening to a CD for the first time while knowing nothing about the artist or the music that they perform is always an exciting thing for me and as soon as the first few chords where played, I knew that I would probably like this CD. It starts out with an acoustic guitar and a piano is quickly brought into the fold. But the thing that brought my focus directly back to the song and away from the website that I was checking out was Crystal's beautiful voice.

There were three songs that really caught my attention on this CD. The first one, "Like Water" has a very catchy piano melody, starting about six seconds into the song and continuing the whole way through. I also love the vocals in this song.

The next song that really stuck out to me is called "Fire and Brimstone." The only thing that I really liked about this song was the lyrics. However, the way the vocals were sung and the use of a banjo just did not jive with the rest of the CD. It probably could be a great song, but I just couldn't handle it.

The last song I'll mention I have completely fallen in love with. It's called "Camera Girl." This song has beautiful lyrics, vocals, guitars and piano. I'm still trying to figure out what this song could possibly be about. It's one of those songs that could probably be about that any one person where you think about what your life with them could have been, but for whatever reason never happened. Maybe that childhood friend who you've lost touch with. Or maybe it is your first serious girlfriend or boyfriend, who you've still got a thing for.

When I got this disc though, I listened to it non-stop for about a week. And I still love putting it in if I'm in one of those mellow moods when anything else just won't do. Another one of the things that I absolutely love about this album is the Crystal wrote, arranged, played, sang, mixed, and recorded the whole CD herself. For the overall rating, I rated each song individually and then took the average of those ratings. It worked out to a 3.69 which, I will round to a 4/5 because I really like this CD.