(17 April 2005) Cape Breton born Colleen Coadic's fifth album You Feel This Good (12 Records (Canada) 12R-001) showsa growing confidence in her own ability and the arrangements reflect this as she progresses through a range of different tunes.

Musical Discoveries visitors will recall Colleen's contributions to Balligomingo's Beneath The Surface on tracks "Escape" and "Being." An interview with the artist and reviews of her three prior albums can be found in our Women of Balligomingo feature.

On You Feel This Good Colleen delivers a range of styles including pop-country, for example, on "There's AHole;" Middle Eastern on standout track "Wicked Kate" which opens imaginatively with just percussion and voice before the string line introduces the Arabic influence.

Only on the "Better Than This" does the adventure in arrangements fall flat. The reggae tinged rhythm completely lacks the necessary 'feel' and thus strikes the only false note on the album.

The song writing is consistently strong, both lyrically, and especially, melodically. Musically, there's maybe a little over reliance on rising chord sequences, but the arrangements more than make up for this.

The album's strewn with hook-laden pop songs replete with sing-along choruses. "Flatbelly" and "Everything Turns To Gold" both have the melodic strength of the best of SherylCrow's offerings.

The drawbacks are few; the album is perhaps a little one paced and hence occasionally it feels a bit relentless; only two songs breach the four minute barrier. The longest, "There's A Hole," clocks in at 4:21, and one or two ofthe musical ideas are worthy of further exploration and development, especially "Wicked Kate" which at 3:10 is barely underway before it ends.

"By The Time You Read This" begins with a fascinating quiet loop with some backwards voices and instruments before breaking out into one of the strongest songs on the album--but the intro seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the piece and would have been worth pursuing for it's own sake--maybe it would have provided the slow song the album needs.

Basically though, this is a fine album that stands up to repeated plays. Eleven of the twelve songs offered are of a high calibre and the vocal performance throughout is exemplary.--Jamie Field in Hereford England and Russ Elliot in New York