When you've got a voice like Serena Ryder, you can sing pretty much anything and everything. So that's exactly what the Toronto singer-songwriter does on her second album If Your Memory Serves You Well.
OK, maybe not everything -- but with the help of a crackerjack band featuring guitarists Kevin Breit and Kurt Swinghammer, the 22-year-old phenom does give her soulful pipes a workout on an impressively eclectic slate of covers. Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy becomes a fittingly downbeat ballad; Hair's Good Morning Starshine is a shimmery slice of folk-pop; The Band's This Wheel's on Fire is given a bluesy setting; the jazz classic Some of These Days is updated with the dusty production, gypsy accordion and twangy guitars of Tom Waits; Paul Anka's It Doesn't Matter Anymore becomes a piano-and-organ gospel ballad; and Sylvia Tyson's You Were on My Mind becomes a lilting reggae groover. Ryder closes with a trio of Alanis-like originals just to remind you she can do a pretty mean job on her own songs too.
Either way, this is a disc guaranteed to stick in your memory for a long time.
By DARRYL STERDAN
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