BettySoo

BettySoo

Let Me Love You

At this late date, being an Austin singer-songwriter and standing apart from the herd takes exceptional talent. BettySoo's local debut, Let Me Love You, has the basics down, the singer's voice bright and strong. She's capable of writing songs with simple melodies and the occasional insightful lyric, but taken as a whole, this album is indistinguishable from anything by the current crew of women who sing of love, family, and heartbreak. At times, Soo recalls Suzanne Vega, Patty Griffin, and Shawn Colvin, but she does so without any of the penetrating insight or naked passion those women have unfurled over time. Instead Soo's lyrics occasionally draw dangerously close to schoolgirl poetry. On "The Memory of You" she rambles: "I know your smile is hiding, somewhere close by, in the corner of a wallet, long forgotten at the bottom of my closet, watching and waiting to break my heart again." That's not to say that Let Me Love You is an unconditional failure. Songs like the insistent "Mother" and the sharply drawn "For Bethany" show more than a glimmer of potential.