Lorraine Maher

As you may know, I am a big Mike Got Spiked fan. When I reviewed their Live & Acoustic album, I discovered their friend, Lorraine Maher, who’s guest vocals are featured on MGS’s Stop Thinking.

Miss Maher was a finalist on RTE TV’s ‘You’re A Star’ program in Ireland, giving the 25 year old the experience and momentum needed to relocate to LA and start a career in that competitive music scene.

Shortly after her relocation, she landed a spot on the soundtrack of The 5th Quarter, a multi-million dollar feature film, with the tune, “Drowning Song.” She has followed these successes with a new solo EP, Inspire Me, released in May, 2011 (first, limited release in October, 2010). This record features a few of the boys from MGS, but their playing is clearly not the focus of this record; Lorraine Maher’s unique and beautiful vocals are. Recorded at Flashrock Studios in North Hollywood, this EP leaves something to be desired as far as production quality, but delivers in the songwriting and vocal performance departments. These are decently written songs, ripe for the pop market, that clearly reference moving to the U.S. and the difficulty inherent in being in a foreign country and surviving the challenges of breaking into a music scene that has so much local talent.

Especially the song “For You,” where the soaring prechorus belies the difficult lyrical content. These kinds of lyrical vs. melodic contradictions are what makes this EP worth your time and effort. I also believe that this EP does not give justice to the true talent that this woman has. I don’t like to be critical of the production quality of a particular company, but I feel like Flashrock have dropped the ball here. Here is an example of the same company doing a better production job with one microphone in a bare room. This video highlights Miss Maher’s vocal strenghths and should give you a reason to give her a second look; despite Flashrock’s poor performance on her record. Flashrock also produced

this video I am posting. This shows that there are various aspects to any company, and it seems like this company’s live sound department does better work than their recording department. I don’t mean that as a slam, just a heads up. And I certainly look forward to hearing more material from Lorraine Maher; here’s to hoping that the next studio that she decides to record at pays her more attention.

Available on iTunes.
Lorraine's Reverb Nation Page.

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