S - Sadstyle

Jenn Ghetto's one-person show S is as much a sincere musical diary as it is a solo project offshoot of her band Carissa's Wierd (yes, it's supposed to be misspelled). Sadstyle was recorded and mixed alone in her bedroom from 1997-1999 on her four-track in a "kind of spur-of-the-moment style," as she explains in the liner notes. Ghetto pours it all out in a chronicle of heartbreak, crushes, and love lost. For Ghetto, like J. Mascis, feelings don't let go -- everything's always messed up and the search for some sort of emotional connection never ends because, as she sings on "See Through Me," "Things have to get better someday." Ghetto has a way with a turn of phrase, and she makes lines like "You rock it out like no one can," from "Up & Down," sound like the closing of a love letter. You get the sense that Ghetto is working out her past and present on tape, trying to come to terms with the craziness of life with an electric guitar and a stack of journal entries. At the end of "Lemonade Sweetheart" she repeats again and again, "I still have some things of yours," and it's as if she's not just talking to some jilted lover but to the listener as well. Ghetto sings a little like Juliana Hatfield, but her voice has more pain and struggle -- there's less sweetness and it's often so distant and spacey that you expect her to disappear into the night sky without so much as a goodbye. ~ Charles Spano, All Music Guide