On her sophomore album Diamonds In The Dark, Boston-based Sarah Borges, along with her band The Broken Singles, check in with a staggering collection of durable barroom rock. Rife with snappy roots numbers (“The Day We Met”), jangly pop (“Stop And Think It Over”) and aching country-tinged ballads (“Around 9”), Borges demonstrates her versatility as a singer, sounding at home tearing it up or slowing it down. Produced by veteran Boston knob turner Paul Q. Kolderie (Radiohead, The Pixies) Diamonds In The Dark is teeming with instant classics, like the dreamy shuffle of “Modern Trick” or the raunchy burn of “Diablito.” A veteran of musical theatre, Borges has a rich and full voice that’s imminently listenable. That being said, her take on X’s “Come Back To Me,” burns with longing and her reading of Tom Waits’ “Blind Love” perfectly captures the song’s bittersweet heartbreak. Elsewhere, “Lonely Town Of Love” brings to mind Letters To Cleo, while “Belle of the Bar” is simply devastating. “Folks back home think I’m a star now when they hear my records playin’,” Borges sings. It shouldn’t be much longer now.
--Alex Green
