Album Reviews From Newspapers, Magazines, and Music Sites
…Courtney Collins, whose sultry and expressive voice would sound great singing just about anything.
The Onion AV Club
Hinterlands has a gorgeous, melancholy, evocative sensibility. Beautiful songwriting and singing…
Veronica Rueckert
Wisconsin Public Radio
Hinterlands excels at creating an atmosphere, evoking the feeling of frozen plains and sweltering days of summer. A Midwestern night’s dream.
Lawrence Gann
Isthmus
The eclectic ability of Courtney Collins to adapt to a style is uncanny. Violet Night is an excellent recording that should be sought out by all musical thrill-seekers and by those who appreciate the injection of some mystery into their rock.
Rick Tvedt
Rick’s Cafe
[Collins and Ylvisaker] added a subtle percussion track and a lonely, watery guitar line reminiscent of The Handsome Family and Andrew Bird. Wait, it is Andrew Bird: Ylvisaker plays guitar and bass in his band. Combined with Collins’ voice — part lounge singer, part Marianne Faithfull — it sounds like an old country ballad drifting through Elvis Costello’s dreams.
Jessica Steinhoff
Isthmus
Sultry chanteuse Collins covers Idlewild’s 100 Broken Windows’ hotfoot Roseability. Credit: does anyone else cover Idlewild?! More credit: Collins has no intention of xeroxing songs she digs. Roseability’s dirty, slamming guitars are traded wholesale for weightless keyboard bloops, yet its magic melody is refreshed by her husky Debbie Harry meets Lulu croon. Ditto Cheap Trick’s warhorse I Want You to Want Me, delightfully reborn as a whisper-C&W song for Patsy Cline, young Willie Nelson, or Ray Price to warble. Perhaps she’s all over the map on seven covers and five originals, but like iPod shuffle buttons, that isn’t so “off” these days, and Violet is tempting.
Jack Rabid
The Big Takeover
All in all, a pretty remarkable solo debut.
Tom Laskin
Isthmus
Courtney Collins makes it work with the sheer power of her low sensuous voice.
Chris Jorgensen
Billings Gazette
Hinterlands is “honing a shivering, glacial beauty. Mazzy Star meets Portishead.”
Jack Rabid
The Big Takeover
Courtney creates music that crosses genres and demonstrates her singular character and style. She is a perceptive observer whose dreamy voice creates a playful mood…
Amandagaze
Rick’s Cafe
Collins’ sultry voice steals the show. She occupies the lower registers with sensual flair, sometimes exuding a jazzy, torch singer approach, and other times presenting a more mellow, low-key sensibility.
Carol Swanson
Christmas Reviews
…Courtney Collins’ silky voice, which sounds especially good when she is singing a cappella…
Kenneth Burns
Isthmus
Collins’ dreamy legato voice glides smoothly…
Mike Huberty
Maximum Ink
Courtney Collins’ brassy, sultry voice is perfectly suited to classics…
Rob Thomas
The Capital Times
Collins’ vocals, sweltering in the jazzy prolongation of her notes, will get her just about anything she wants underneath the tree.
Christine Holm
The Badger Herald
(Review of “Yuletide Swank”)
Collins’ voice is a dark, sultry cocktail of sensual tease and she loves to experiment with arrangements that ultimately suit her style quite effectively.
Local Sounds
Her solo work — especially on “Hinterlands” — is more stately and contemplative, her singing carrying a kind of emotional weight and purity…
Randy Erickson
La Crosse Tribune
“Thirteen Men” is a vampish-sounding bass-heavy delight. Collins’ temptress tones are at their best. “Used To,” an original, resembles Blondie in their punk pop glory. Collins is both a gifted interpreter and a good songwriter in her own right.
Anna Maria Stjarnell
Collected Sounds
Courtney Collins’s seductive vocal style meshes with a surprising range of musical genres from lounge to tear-in-your-beer to Blondie-ish punk.
Mel Goldsipe
Go Girls Music