Heartfelt jammin'

With ten songs lasting a shade over a half hour, Ida Maria's Fortress Round My Heart gets in and out quick in its mission to shake up your morning commute and get ya jammin' on your steering wheel. Both Maria's voice and her songs have the same seemingly opposing qualities: rough earthiness and melodic lyricism. But they work together beautifully: Maria will often, and memorably, scream, laugh, or sob through her lyrics, but never completely stray from the well-crafted melodies each song offers.

And the songs, too, are often very earthy: about affairs, lust, drunkenness, messy relationships, but always getting back to heartfelt expressions of the gentler, nobler emotions and feelings underneath our manic moments. Another way to put it would be to say that Fortress Round My Heart feels like the offspring of a 70's punk album and a collection of Paul McCartney songs.

I also felt the subtle influence of the Go Gos, early Beatles, and maybe one or two other pop icons. But again, it's subtle; the Norwegian Maria seems to have learned and taken inspiration from her predecessors, but very much developed her own artistic voice.

This exciting merge of the best aspects of pop and alternative rock is well worth a listen, and probably a frequent presence in that pile of CD's in your back seat that make up your regular driving-time playlist.