Minton Sparks' performance poetry is not for the faint of heart. Her words paint streaks of pain across the canvas that can't be ignored once spoken.

Though I truly appreciated Sparks's Middlin' Sisters, I had a harder time getting into this CD. I think the difference is that Middlin' gave an inside view while the poetry of Sin Sick is a little more raw, a lot angrier and offers more of an outside-looking-in perspective.

Still, Sparks' talent with words is immense. Even though she can paint colourfully painful images with her words, the larger effect on this CD is her painting of moods and emotions. With her strong words she evokes both the weaknesses and strengths of the female situation.

Strumming with her angry guitar, she speaks out about stories that many young and old women don't know how to express. Poetically painting youth experiences with what may be normal, yet frightening situations, she reveals what is probably glossed over on many a psych couch.

Though the rawness of her words and expressions reveal deep, disrespectful violence, the musical drawl of her voice provides a thread of human consciousness, hope and revelation. Her works are a window to memory and life that should be cracked opened every day. And hopefully, when revealing the view, injustice and intolerance and careless violence will diminish wherever it still exists.

[ visit the artist's website ]