Track Listing

1. Walk This World
2. Heal
3. Island
4. Throwing Fire at the Sun
5. Maybe an Angel
6. Sugar
7. Truth and Bone
8. Blue Black
9. Walking Higher
10. Light Years
11. Verona
12. Doubled Up

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #127894 in Music
• Released on: 1995-08-15
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
The hooky, upbeat "Walk This World" sounds like a major hit, but it's merely the most accessible side of a feverish, poetic artist who'll be compared more to Sarah McLachlan and Sinead O'Connor than to Sheryl Crowe. Lush melodies abound, but some tracks ("Island," "Sugar") have an intensity worthy of Patti Smith, and there's emotional blood on tracks like "Blue Black." Other highlights on this edgy, affecting debut are "Maybe an Angel" and "Throwing Fire at the Sun." --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews

An unsung '90s classic.
Many people have heard the infectious chorus to "Walk This World" without knowing who Heather Nova is. Whether it's due to low-key marketing or Nova's idiosyncracy, Oyster remains a delight.

On this album Nova begins a simpler, denser approach developed from the sparse acoustic-guitar-based sounds on first album Glow Stars. Some of her most memorable melodies can be found on this album: "Walk This World", with a throbbing bassline, breathy verses and a soaring chorus that indeed evokes the freedom that the lyrics aspire towards; "Sugar", a marriage of spoken-word narrative and tough electric-guitar rock; "Light Years", a sensual, dramatic ballad that conjures an image of Romeo and Juliet-calibre romantic passion; "Island", a dark tale of abuse and self-accusation; "Truth and Bone", whose chorus sounds simultaneously fresh and familiar, like it should've been written a long time ago; and "Maybe an Angel", one of the most straightforward pop compositions Nova has ever written.

A necessary, overlooked work, born of a rare clarity of expression and craft.

Her songs hook up with my brain
For me, a song that works is like finding a bicycle that is the right size for your chimp. Not everyone has ever trained a chimpanzee to ride a bicycle or picked up the words and chords to a song and found that the words suggest a melody so strongly that there is something internal that is felt exactly at the point on the paper where a chord coincides with one of the words. This is not likely to happen until the brain actually knows the song well enough to make an exterior combination of words and chords into an objective correlative for music that is entirely inside your head, but a chimp on a bicycle only needs to learn to balance and to make the pedals go around to get going.

The perfect example this morning is `Doubled Up,' the last song on the Heather Nova CD `Oyster' that I heard last night. The brain can learn to listen, but once the music is over, the brain tries to complete the experience by repeating the best part to itself, like a kid in Freud's book BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE that demands to hear a story over exactly the same way until the child is exhausted. The kid in Freud's book was obsessed with things that were out of sight. A single servant girl could take care of the kid when his mother was not at home, but his form of play with his toys was all "there" and "gone." I'm not going to explain that game. What is even better is that Heather Nova song:

Big sky above me, a river inside me
and I'm doubled up in love.

Feels good, it feels like poetry,
don't ask me to explain, it just
feels good, like poetry,
I'm doubled up again.

A classic
This is a superlative album and definitely one of my favorites. "Oyster" is one of those rare CDs whose every track is a gem--I can listen to it in its entirety without skipping a track. In my mind it stands out both sonically and lyrically. The melodies are beautiful and memorable, and Ms. Nova's soprano voice, though it does not sound highly trained, is pleasant, expressive, and never grating. Her wailing "blue black" in the haunting track Blue Black highlights the mesmerizing quality and sheer power of her voice. Both acoustic and electric guitar are present on this album and complement the varying intensity of each song. A refreshing surprise is the sound of a cello on many of the songs.

Although much of the album deals with love and relationships, Ms. Nova's lyrics take an original approach to this favorite subject of trite pop music. Her metaphors are fresh, e.g. "And the waves pull us in / There's something rising up and up" (Heal) and "I've got this crazy dream of stripping down to truth and bone" (Truth and Bone). Walk This World, sexually charged and probably the most upbeat song on the album, boasts an energetic, "hooky" chorus. The melancholy of Island, another stand-out track, captures the desperation and self-doubt felt by a victim of an abusive relationship. The last track, Doubled Up, is a simple and beautiful love song and perhaps the most optimistic track on the album (and, incidentally, always reminds me of Tori Amos' Twinkle).

"Oyster" is less upbeat and much more moody than Ms. Nova's later releases, "Siren" and "South," and it may be slightly less accessible, but I think it is the superior album. I recommend this CD to anyone who enjoys the genre of pop-rock-folk music and who appreciates intelligent lyrics and sensitive song-writing.