The songs are great, and the arrangements are excellent on Carol Fredette's No Sad Songs for Me.

I'm of mixed minds about the vocal style, though. It's described as "conversational," and that's true. All of the singing is sort of half-singing, half-talking -- an approach that probably works really wonderfully well in live performances, but gets somewhat repetitive on an album where every song makes use of this technique.

I will say Fredette works wonderfully with her back-up musicians, and they do a great job of filling things in. The song choices, too, feature her voice well, given its limitations.

I get the impression that she'd be stunning to hear in person. This album, however, does not showcase her skills as well as could be hoped.