Over the Rhine

“I don’t want to waste your time with music you don’t need,” Karin Bergquist, lead singer of Over the Rhine, declares at the start of The Trumpet Child, the Cincinnati-based band’s 18th full-length album.  She’s not joking, either.  Bergquist has never really been a shy singer, but up until recent years, she wouldn’t be classified as what she is now: confident.
 
And that’s what The Trumpet Child is, from the flirty “Trouble” and “I’m On a Roll” to the guarded optimism in “Who’m I Kiddin’ But Me” and “Entertaining Thoughts”—the happy-go-lucky batch of songs burns its own path and never gets lost. The songwriting of Linford Detweiler is smart, the vocals of Bergquist sexy and smoky, creating a sometimes jazzy feel that has a simple agenda—to have fun.  They ponder, at the end of the disc, if a song could be President; I’d like to proudly nominate any of these 11 trumpet children to conquer that job.

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