I have to say right off the bat that I am a huge Shannon Wright fan and I have been since I first saw her open for Low or something like ten years ago or something. Her releases have always challenged my perceptions of her music, which walks a dizzying tightrope between quirky piano ballads, dark atmospheric pieces, and heavier guitar and drum ragers (of which "Let in the Light" has all of within its eleven tunes).

While this record is not the thunderstorm that "Over the Sun" was, nor is it the mysterious pop of "Perishable Goods" and "Dyed in the Wool", it is in fact all of these things wrapped into one deal.

Her sixth release for Touch-N-Go, "Let in the Light" is the complete package, a veritable collection of greatest hits that you have never heard (although this isn't a greatest hits? man, when they put that out, that will be album of the year!) Ranging from the thumping and rolling "St Pete" to the almost folksy "When the Light Shone Down" (folksy, if it weren't played through a fuzzy slightly overdriven amp), the songs do a great job of showing Wright's skills on the six-string? But then she pulls up the piano bench and all hell breaks loose?

Opener "Defy This Love" has kind of a baroque show-tuney kind of feel, that is possibly the only facet of Wright's musical persona that I am not 100% sold on, but man, she even does that really well. It is when she gets cooking on "Idle Hands" and "Everybody Got Their Part to Play", the closing masterpiece, that she sounds like John Lennon on the keys, and her voice takes to the heavens.

So, if you've heard her before, then you know instantly that you need this record in your collection. If you haven't heard her, then shame on you? this is definitely the release to start off your Shannon Wright collection. 9/10 -- Grant Capes (9 May, 2007)