"Lyrically honest and musically experimental... intelligent compositions." (Indie-Music.com)

It takes artistic courage to be this lyrically honest and musically experimental. Shimmerplanet is a collection of artists but mainly songwriter Soren Anders and vocalist Carolyn Eufrasio. They trade off on lead vocals. The music is filled with strings and deep grooves and a bit of playfulness (Anders is credited with, among other instruments, a toy piano). The lyrics sound like Anders passed every high school vocab test with flying colors. From the opening track “Silence of Midnight”: It’s getting late and I am exacerbated ... I’ve debated and debated this debasement; no abatement, I hate it ... If every song were like this, the album would be extremely pretentious. But Anders shows a sense of humor quite often, even if it’s a sardonic one. My favorite track is “Easy,” sung by Carolyn, a look at love connections in the modern world set to a hot Latin beat and flavored with dancing string arrangements: I put my picture on a public site It went live only last night Today my box is full! My love life is on a roll! Can’t wait ‘til Wednesday for the latest copy ... Every song has a different approach, from the funky/R&B “On My List” to the beat-poetry feel of the delicate “Cool Web.” I liked the lovely classical composition entitled “Everyone Says You Love Me But You.” Again and again, I kept opening the CD booklet to double-check the lyrics to make sure they were saying what I thought they were saying. Anders is a true poet, and his strongest lyrical work shows in “Author,” a song about wanting to literally rewrite his childhood. I love the line, “If you were a character, I’d make you minor, a paragraph from hello to goodbye.” This is an album of intelligent compositions -- a few radio-friendly, the rest boldly not so. Strongly recommended.