Nicky Mehta - Press

Nicky Mehta comes out the the blue like a bolt of lightning with this release, her debut. You don't need a weatherman to tell which way her fame will be blowing. This CD is solidly professional from the production to the recording quality to the cover graphics.

Mehta co-produced the CD with Lloyd Peterson. Mehta sings with an assured, supple, silvery voice. She doesn't try to sound like Joni Mitchell or Ani Difranco. The production varies from full rock to just Mehta, her guitar and simple, subtle accompaniment.

She arrives as an accomplished songwriter with the 11 original songs on this CD. Her intriguingly crafted song "Hope" offers an entirely new slant on patriotism, and love. However, the tour de force on this CD is "Truly", which she recorded in concert. This heart-wrenching song explores what it means to love truly, not just in a romantic sense. She wrote it for those who lost friends and loved ones on Pan Am 103, having lost her own kin in a terrorist airplane bombing a few years earlier. After September 11 the song takes on an even deeper and more relevant feeling.

Mehta still has a little ways to go in tidying up her poetic technique, but overall she has the potential to become a major figure among contemporary singer-songwriters.

- R. Warr

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