A clever songwriter with a classically divine voice Toronto, Canada’s Emma-Lee spins songs of mass seduction on her debut album, Never Just A Dream. Built from ambivalent tales of heartbreak and redemption that everyone who has loved has gone through, the songs are like sonic submersibles, delving their way into the parts of you that make you tick. The catchy lyrics and osmotic melodies follow you and before you know it you’re bopping right along.

The luscious landscape of “That Sinking Feeling” sets the proper mood for what you’re going to get; a genre-defying balance of songs that are flawlessly produced to compliment one of Canada’s best-undiscovered secrets: Emma-Lee’s voice.

“Jealousy” is a gamboling good time of a “grow up already” tune that serves nicely as a dance-by-yourself-because-it-feels-good-to-be-alive anthem with lyrics such as, “If we could all make the same confessions/Stop treating lovers like god damn possessions/’Cause people do what people want to anyways.” The juxtaposition might come with “Isn’t It Obvious”, a beautifully honest song about the perils of being stuck in a place that you know isn’t right, but you can’t quite—either by choice or circumstance—get away from.

“Mr. Buttonlip” may not be as blunt as Alanis Morissette’s “You Outta Know” with its happy-go-lucky toe-tapping big band sound, but this a big fat “F’ off!’ proclamation if ever there was one, and never has a smooth-as-silk voice stung so severely as when Emma-Lee sings, “So why do you stick around just to stay in the picture?/This album closed when you hit the road.” Next up is the bluesy, “An Older Man”, a super-sexy coming-into-their-sexual-own tale that will have a legion of boys chalking up their driver’s licenses to try and disguise themselves as men when they hear a verse like, “Lips like clockwork ‘cause he’s kissed a lot of flowers.”

The minimalism of the piano-driven epic “Flow” recalls the sparse serenades of Lionel Richie’s best ballads when he ruled the contemporary airwaves. Like many of the other songs on Never Just A Dream the person in “Flow” is someone who is waiting for a crescendo that’s never going to come; only in terms of the song, as it reaches its crescendo and Emma-Lee belts out, “Just let me go” it’s just as cathartic as it is stunning.

At 25-years old, in 42-minutes, on her debut album no less, Emma-Lee accomplishes what most of her forbearers forgot long ago: that you don’t sit down to only watch certain scenes in a movie, so why should you do it with an album? As listeners we’re just as guilty, in this single-driven society we tend to sacrifice quantity for quasi-quality, forgoing the experience of experiencing an album for the convenience of the chopping block to fill our iPod playlists. With Never Just A Dream Emma-Lee spares us the shears, offering instead this top-to-bottom, no-fillers testimonial of someone, who through thick and thin, is learning to feel comfortable in their own skin. Never Just A Dream not only belongs in the discussion for the Best Debut Album of the Year, it can hold its own against the Tidals, Little Earthquakes, and whatever-other-notable-debut you want to compare it to. It’s that good.

If there’s one thing to hold against Emma-Lee it’s that she may have mislead you. On “Bruise Easy” she sings, “And it’s hard to love a girl wearing sorrow.” That’s a lie; it’s hard not to love a girl who wears it so well. Emma-Lee isn’t a name that you’re going to remember. She’s a singer you’ll never forget.

This post is tagged Emma-Lee, Never Just a Dream