No surprise that 26-year-old Connecticut native Kristin Hoffman is a Juilliard School of Music grad: the NYC-based singer/pianist’s second CD, and first major-label release, is pleasant pop that oozes confident training. Her warm, strong voice is served straight, with thoughtful phrasing rather than vocal theatrics creating momentum and building emotion: it’s stylish without being stylized. Producer David Bottrill (Tool, Peter Gabriel) underscores her piano and voice with airy washes of guitar and unobtrusive bass and drums. The songs do the rest: "When We Were Kids" is sentimental country pop that avoids melodrama, "Falling" is a swooning, new age-tinged number that stops short of getting gushy, and the velvety title track is a soul-searching anthem Celine Dion would go to town on. Hoffman, however, retains a wonderful sense of balance, keeping it light, and real.
Kristin Hoffman + Will Dailey + Three Day Threshold | Paradise Lounge, 969 Comm Ave, Boston | Jan 18 | 617.562.8814
