Every once in a while comes along an album, finely produced, well-played, extremely well sung, in sum subtly seductive, clearly an epiphany of heartfelt expression to the performer.

But which comes off to the listener, for all its artisanal craftsmanship, as oppressive to listen to because of the ideas it conveys. I’ve encountered this rare specimen today, though I shan’t name it or its creator.

Surely, the performer of whom I speak is thoroughly convinced of her rightness (righteousness?) in “speaking from the heart,” that shibboleth all post-modernists employ to justify what they create. And even that her work is Art (so she has said in interviews), regardless of its intention or its effect.

We must be cautious when any performer claims to be an Artist. There are few, very very few, who ever reach that level of creative expression. And those few would rarely admit to such achievement, because they know how dear, how rare and striven for that attainment truly is. But we know the tree from its fruits.

Rather, I hear in this performer’s voice, an insistence, a dread of life and a sense of the innate superiority of her ideas, which, sadly, give little of substance to the audience other than emotive dissonance — clothed in harmonious tones, mind you. Such is not my life, nor any life I care to hear about.

Beware the siren song!