Kate McDonnell Next "Kate McDonnell is an engaging, inventive, authentic, charismatic performer with a voice that will bowl you over with its beauty and power. On top of that, she makes me howl with laughter. Her songwriting and guitar style are exquisite." - Nancy Tucker Kate McDonnell, now of Portland, Maine, delivers her second CD, Next. From subtle reflections on true love -"Secrets" and "Time and Time Again" - to her irascible blues tune "Don't Fix My Faucet" - to the joyous "Dog's Odyssey," Kate speaks from the heart, plays a mean riff (she plays upside down and backwards) and sings with power and purity. Production leaves guitar and vocal up front. Songs include "Lines" and "Enola Gay" - omigod she's a radical - "Looking Down For Looking Up," "I Just Assumed," "If I Knew," "Tangerine Shirt," "Our Love" and "Baltimore." I took a walk down by the lake It was frozen o'er, and the wind it blew It sounded like the moan of a hundred drowning men Frozen underneath for a hundred years So I thought that must be how it feels to bury deep The secrets that you hold from them and me "...what soars marvelously over all this is Kate McDonnell's stunning and athletic voice, dynamic guitar playing and emotionally authentic songs. Highly recommended." - Dwight Thurston, WWUH Kate McDonnell looks, with steady compassion and insight, to the shadow side of our natures. Her themes weave through true love and pain, self-destruction and redemption. In her work an ancient grace is invoked, a sense of pure delight. Kate McDonnell insists, and proves by insisting, that honor and genuine love are still possible between human beings. "Anything That Runs" concerns McDonnell's dog (pictured on the cover) and human psychology. "Seeking Passage" is an intriguing, mysterious love song -- "You say you seek passage to my heart, I just seek passage through the dark / You say it's lonely at the bottom, you don't know how far down the bottom goes..." "The Last Time Robbie Called Me" with lyrics by Kate's mother Constance, tells a tragic story, sung here with great, quiet power. Musicians include Scott Petito (bass), Abby Newton (Cello), Dean Cummins(drums), Dewey Burns(vocals). When the lines of my eyes Meet the lines of my smile Will you still treasure me As you do now You'll be my aging paramour And our footsteps will fade by the sea...