Courier Mail, QLD
“Abby Dobson’s voice is a rich, warm bear hug of a thing long missing from Australian radio”
Sunday Mail, SA
“RISE UP instantly reminds its listener of the delicate and deeply emotive quality of Dobson’s voice from the first to the last”
Daily Telegraph 4.5 stars
“”There’s no mistaking the distinctive voice of former Leonardo’s Bride front woman Abby Dobson”
“Dobson hasn’t lost her knack for a great pop hook”
Sunday Telegraph
“Dobson shows growth and an emotional range with lyrics that feel like she’s whispering in your ear”
Sun Herald
“Abby Dobson offers a solo album that spotlights her ear for a well-crafted pop tune”
Canberra Times
“That marvellous, dreamy and very distinctive voice is back... “
“Dobson has risen up from where she’s been hiding and proved she can soar high as a solo artist”
Music Australian Guide
“Abby’s voice is breathtaking ... as good as any in this country”
Drum Sydney
“To finally hear Ms Dobson’s distinctive tones across a whole album is both a relief and delight”
Rave, Brisbane
“As one might expect, everything here sounds gorgeous”
REVIEWS
ABBY DOBSON
Rise Up
While there are certainly quite a few more female
voices being heard now than when Leonardo's
Bride had their three-and-a-bit golden minutes built
around Even When I'm Sleeping, to finally hear Ms
Dobson's distinctive tones across a whole album is
both a relief and delight.
It's not just that intriguing mix of longing breathiness
and almost childlike delight she can conjure that
sets Abby apart from the Missy-inspired confessional
masses of girls with guitars. Her sweetly-tinged pop
is all about the delight of attraction, and hope, and
just looking up Cloud Watching as you hold their
hand, unlike the many these days who seem intent
on almost clinical post-mortems of relationships
gone wrong.
That said, it's not all fairy floss and hearts and
flowers. The typical slow-motion. decline of the Bride,
and a bout of debilitating illness perhaps just make
Abby appreciate the good and positive more than
some of we cynical old curmudgeons. It's Only
Love, certainly, but many don't even get that. It's
worth singing about. The history adds some realism:
See What The Morning Brings is an honesty few can
bring themselves to.
Some well chosen others add some further colour
and flourishes to her quietly crafted pop, among
them Sarah Blasko's musical collaborator Robert
Cranny, who knows how to add layers but not
submerge the individual voice at the core of a song.
It's a welcome return. Her voice, her songs, and her
spirit soar in places. And that's enough for me.
ROSS CLELLAND
March 25, 2008
Noosa News - Songstress Soothes Soul
When Leonardo's Bride was still kicking around, the thing that made it so special was Abby Dobson's voice. Listening to her sing is like having all your troubles taken away as she gently soothes you with her vocal chords. Now as a solo artist she is achieving the same results but this time with her music.
Her debut album as a soloist is full of tracks all written by Abby herself, and they are all gorgeous. There isn't a single note on this album that doesn't hit the mark. If you were a Leonardo's Bride fan, See What The Morning Brings is the track that will make you fall in love with Abby as a soloist. It echoes the feeling and sound of their successful single Even When You're Sleeping.
If you like listening to beautiful music by a talented artist with an incredible voice, definitely add this to your collection.
9/10 - Nathanael Cooper
Rolling Stone - SPRING ALBUM SPECIAL
November, 2007
ALMOST A DECADE AFTER "Even When I'm Sleeping" cemented Abby Dobson's place in the Oz pop pantheon, the Sydney singer and songwriter has completed her solo debut. "This record has taken an age really," she says. "It's been brewing inside me since I left Leonardo's Bride." In the inter- vening years there were recording sessions in L.A. and Paris, and "a very long period of dark nights of the soul," for Dobson. "I had some challenging health conditions I needed to learn how to heal, and existential dilemmas that rode pillion to that," she explains. The album's title track goes some way to describing her journey, one that's finally lead to a luminously beautiful album that shifts from ambient balladry on "Whisper Nothing", to the urban pop in- fluence of Lauryn Hill and Nelly Furtado on "It's Only Love".
October 11, 2007
The Daily Telegraph
4 1/2 Stars
There's no mistaking the distinctive voice of former Leonardo's Bride frontwoman Abby Dobson, who, right from the beautifully arranged You Will Find Your Way, sounds completely at home. Ten years on from breakthrough Bride album Angel Blood and Dobson hasn't lost her knack for a great pop hook. The single Shining Star and Horses endear themselves steadily, while the groove-laden Free As A Bird keeps things light. With the likes of Sarah Blasko's Robert F. Cranny, Paul mac and Jackie Orszaczky involved, Dobon's songs get the lift they need. Bronwy Thompson
October 7, 2007
Sunday Mail, Adelaide
In Short: Golden voice loses none of its lustre.
EX-LEONARD'S Bride vocalist Abby Dobson returns to the spotlight with this charming set of pretty songs that display an intricately layered and expertly mixed talent in full bloom.
Rise Up instantly reminds its listener of the delicate and deeply emotive quality of Dobson's voice from the first to the last. It's clear her time away has left her loaded with good material and refilled her desire to hit the mark.
The songs sparkle with that necessary musical pixie dust called inspiration, sweetly crying out for love whether on the flushed Cloud Watching, funky throwaway It's Only Love, reassuring You Will Find Your Way or pouty sigh of Shining Star.
Sarah Blasko's musical partner Robert F. Cranny turns up to spin some magic on the terrific Horses and esteemed Paul Mac.
The time may well be ripe for Abby's resurgence; after all Missy Higgins has made a mini-fortune covering the ground Dobson had been tilling with Leonardo's Bride.
Dobson will support The Waifs at the Governor Hindmarsh on Sunday November 18.
Paul Nassari
Abby Dobson Press"A mega watt powerful voice which conjures melancholy, romance and sex, seemingly out of the ether" – the independent, england
"Abby Dobson’s curiously arousing sulk sinks into slow release melodies like a body into a scented bath" – rolling stone.
‘…she belts out power ballads, delicate laments and quirky, catchy melodies with professional ease. Dobson seems to be one part Gwen Stefani to two parts Sinead O'Connor;…a tightly coiled set which hints at stadium status." Jane Cornwell, The Independent, England,
"imagine some half-candied, half-blistering blend between Marianne Faithful, Shirley Manson, Edie Brickell and a female Feargal Sharkey. …. Dobson has unmistakable star quality" the scotsman, scotland'Her voice is a marvelous instrument [one marvels at its resonance and breadth] ….dobson's dreamy yet powerful delivery
- sydney morning herald
‘…seductive rapture …’ - rolling stone
‘…the wave of sound upon which the immaculate abby dobson surfs, casting lyrics of urban mystification as she goes. as i always say when i get too excited - gorgeous !’ ….- revolver magazine, sydney
‘i swoon as she effortlessly plays with syncopation and phrasing, melody, and the beating hearts of the audience….’. - the brag, sydney
‘..her voice - sultry, mournful, with a hint of vulnerability - tamed the entertainment centre crowd’…. - The Australian
Abby Dobson's remarkable singing, both the sound and the mesmerising style of her delivery, is the key intoxicant, but one with a delayed-action effect - only rarely does she really let rip and belt it out, yet the layers of phrasing and feeling are compacted in her voice to a recurrently spine-tingling depth; imagine some half-candied, half-blistering blend between Marianne Faithful, Shirley Manson, Edie Brickell and a female Feargal Sharkey…. Dobson has unmistakable star quality. - The Scotsman, Scotland.
‘…walks the tight-rope between quality and accessibility…..Abby Dobson's vocals layer an earthy passion with soothing huskiness….’ - Time Out, London
‘….startlingly beautiful’ – Daily News, New York.Brett Winterford
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD -
September 21, 2007
Pop's wounded angel is back to mend hearts, her own included.
Abby Dobson
Genre: Pop
Location: The Basement
Address: 29 Reiby Pl, Sydney
Date: 27 September 2007
Tickets: $18 plus bookng fee.
Phone Bookings: (02) 9251 2797
Online Bookings: www.thebasement.com.au
Abby Dobson, the voice of Australian pop artisans Leonardo's Bride, knows how to own a stage.
Whether singing to 70,000 in The Domain, with giant angel wings fixed to her back, or crooning to a tiny Newtown club on Christmas Eve, Dobson is radiant. It is rare to see her on stage without an ear-to-ear grin.
"It's a facade," she says. "Everybody always says how happy I am. I'm always surprised."
Off stage, she says, things aren't always so rosy. In the six years since Leonardo's Bride took an extended hiatus, Dobson has been waging war with herself on a personal and creative level.
It's a struggle that has helped shape Dobson's solo debut, Rise Up, which the singer admits has been too many years in the making.
"It was never my intention to take so long," Dobson says. "There were lots of personal roadblocks. I had a period of bad health, which made me retreat from a lot of things and go on a journey inward to heal."
Dobson also struggled to realise her vision for how her debut record should sound. She experimented with several producers, many of whom attempted to create something "clever and interesting", but none that shaped something she would "feel like playing over again".
"I wanted the album to feel open-hearted and not contrived," she says. "I wanted to be excited and moved by it."
For an album written during such a difficult period, Rise Up has come out as an uplifting collection of songs - much to Dobson's surprise. Most songs speak like a gentle reassurance or a pep talk to a friend that's down and out.
"I thought I was writing a melancholy record," Dobson says. "When I was writing the songs, I wasn't happy. It's just that once I sing [them], they automatically sound happy. My voice makes things sound that way."
In many ways, the fractured process behind making the album has worked in Dobson's favour. Several of her "little experiments" with various producers and musicians have found their way onto the record.
Phil Punch, Chris Townend, Tony Buchen and Paul McKercher have recorded or mixed parts of the album. Arrangers such as Robert F. Cranny, who has worked with Sarah Blasko, helped shape a few songs, as did Paul Mac, for whom Dobson sung the irresistible Gonna Miss You on 3000 Feet High.
Veteran Jackie Orszaczky provides stunning string arrangements on the opening and closing tracks, while cameos include Bondi's pop poet David Lane, Leonardo's Bride songwriting partner Dean Manning and Coda violinist Naomi Radom.
"In the end it was put together with love, glue and Paddle Pop sticks."
Rise Up could just as easily be an album of 12 singles as a single body of work. Songs such as the exquisite Horses hit similar heights to Leonardo's Bride's '90s hit Even When I'm Sleeping.
Heartfelt songs, Dobson admits, aren't the flavour of the month on radio.
"But then again, Even When I'm Sleeping was different to everything else on the radio at the time," she says. "It took six months of pushing it; then he had to beg them to stop playing it!"
For now Dobson is just relieved, finally, to realise her labour of love.
"I have been carrying this project for such a long time," she says. "I want to wrap it up and throw it to the sky. It needs a life of its own now."
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