{"id":1323,"date":"2010-10-19T10:46:31","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T16:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2010-10-19T10:46:31","modified_gmt":"2010-10-19T16:46:31","slug":"review-tender-forever-no-snare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2010\/10\/19\/review-tender-forever-no-snare\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Tender Forever &#8211; No Snare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/tender-forever-no-snare-cover-art-300x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1324\" title=\"tender-forever-no-snare-cover-art-300x300\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/tender-forever-no-snare-cover-art-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nMelanie  Valera couldn\u2019t have picked a more apt moniker. As Tender Forever,  Valera crafts curiously intimate, sparsely instrumented indie pop &#8211;  previously seen on 2005\u2019s <em>The Soft and the Hardcore<\/em> and 2007\u2019s <em>Wider<\/em> &#8211; letting her pipes take centre stage to draw you in close. And close  you get. Valera\u2019s voice tends to wrap around you, going from hopeful  staccato to desperate howls. Opening with \u201cGot to Let Go,\u201d on which  Valera croons, \u201cThis song is not for you and it is meant to be\/ Just a  piece of something nice that you won\u2019t get to see,\u201d the album seems  borne the eventual relief and release that comes from heartbreak, that  pocket after the end of a relationship where emotions run free and wild,  the realization that you\u2019re better off alone. \u201cDay Number\u201d swiftly  counts off phases of a dying relationship, followed by the musically  optimistic, yet lyrically dark \u201cBut The Shape Is Wide.\u201d <em>No Snare<\/em> &#8211; named  not for instrumental patterns, but rather, as Valera sings on \u201cThe  Snare That\u2019s Gone,\u201d \u201cMy heart was the snare you could hit anywhere\u201d &#8211;  \u00a0is truly an album in the purest sense, a mood that carries through all  nine tracks and belies song transitions, each number luring you further  into an oddly soothing sorrow, flashes of synths, organs and various  percussions. (K records,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.krecs.com\/\"> www.krecs.com<\/a>) <strong>Brietta O\u2019Leary<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melanie Valera couldn\u2019t have picked a more apt moniker. As Tender Forever, Valera crafts curiously intimate, sparsely instrumented indie pop &#8211; previously seen on 2005\u2019s The Soft and the Hardcore and 2007\u2019s Wider &#8211; letting her pipes take centre stage to draw you in close. And close you get. Valera\u2019s voice tends to wrap around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[945],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-tender-forever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}