Harmonium

1	White Houses 3:45
2	Who's to Say 4:51
3	Annie 4:48
4	San Francisco 4:12
5	Afterglow 3:56
6	Private Radio 2:59
7	Half a Week Before the Winter 3:27
8	C'est la Vie 2:34
9	Papa 2:39
10	She Floats 5:15
11	The Wreckage 4:49

Barnes & Noble

In an era when female singers tend to equate growing up with shedding clothes, Vanessa Carlton stands out as a young woman who's maturing the old-fashioned way -- by exploring deeper topics and evolving her own musical style. On Harmonium, her sophomore outing, Carlton uses her baroque piano stylings as a jumping-off point for a set of surprisingly sophisticated, beautifully orchestrated compositions. Thanks in part to the production work of Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins -- who also happens to be Carlton's significant other -- the disc has more upbeat, poppy moments than its predecessor, notably the breezy title track and the spirited "Private Radio," which revels in simple expressions of individuality. The 24-year-old singer doesn't skimp, however, on the confessional-styled yarns, as evidenced by the Tori Amos–inflected "Annie" and the yearning "She Floats." The sophistication of Carlton's musicianship is unmistakable, but her endearingly girlish vocal delivery -- most palpable on the graceful "Papa" -- ensures that the proceedings don't get overly heavy. David Sprague

All Music Guide

On her second album, Harmonium, singer/songwriter Vanessa Carlton enlists her boyfriend, Stephan Jenkins -- best-known as the frontman of the popular post-grunge band Third Eye Blind -- as a producer and co-songwriter, and his presence doesn't so much alter Carlton's music as give it a sharper, direct focus. Carlton and Jenkins focus on the lush, dramatic teen-age angst that made "A Thousand Miles" a big hit in 2002, using that song as the template for a collection of songs that are intimate on a grand scale. Carlton's songs often read like diary entries, dealing with such familiar adolescent themes as love and longing, and they sound even smaller when delivered in her thin but appealing girlish voice, but they gain stature when married to the cinematic arrangements, driven by her insistent, circular piano and dressed by light layers of strings, guitars, and vocal overdubs. Where her Be Not Nobody debut could sound endearingly awkward, Harmonium is confident and somber, a conscious attempt to be serious and mature. Stephen Thomas Erlewine