Mr. Cohn, 43, writes songs so plaintive they seem like the sort of ballads you would listen to while contemplating signing divorce papers.
CS Lewis remembers vaguely "all sorts of ballads and folk-tales in which the dead tell us that our mourning does them some kind of wrong.
The trio gives it the sort of processional ballad tempo that doesn't come easily to a young man; if they did play it then, they're surely playing it better now.
The record, to me, splits up into three different four-song segments, the first four ending in a sort of anthemic ballad, "Continents Drift," the second four ending in another one, "Here We Go Again," and the final four ending with a funny song about the South, "In The Low Country".
Until that point, Ms. Sanchez had enjoyed a good night, singing the sort of power ballads for which her voice seems tailor made.
Like the beloved "Wizard of Oz" film, this production delivers both spectacle and the sort of tearjerking ballads one can already hear tinkling in every piano bar.
I Care 4 U, cowritten by Missy Elliot, is the sort of 1970s style ballad that Aaliyah's aunt, Gladys Knight, would approve of - but again it's stripped down and rebuilt with layers of haunting keyboard and lo-tech vocal percussion.
There are quirky songs, like the urgent lead track All the Rowboats, political barbs, ditsy love songs and even the sort of potentially mawkish ballad – complete with sweeping strings – covered by contestants on TV talent shows.
Yes, there's still the sort of treacly piano ballad that sounds like an unnecessary aural representation of everything that Etsy has ever sold, but there's also a cartoon.
The lead single from "Charmbracelet," "Through the Rain," is the sort of self-help ballad Ms. Carey was singing a decade ago, but it hasn't been a hit with radio D.J.'s.
