Jen Porter - Press

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Review from StarPolish.com – October 2003

Jen Porter’s piano-driven, bluesy rock has a very distinctive 70’s art-prog sound. This is partly owed to the flute accompaniment on “How It Feels,” which always reminds me of Jethro Tull. Jen has a true Janis Joplin feel to her deep, soulful, very rocking voice; but you will also hear qualities of both Natalie Merchant and Tori Amos in her phrasing. “How It Feels” has a jazz swing to the beat because of her drummer’s time keeping on his hi-hat, and that adds a nice texture to this very appealing performance of a perfectly arranged song. And how can you find any fault with a woman who apparently held a crowd of 40,000 Detroit Pistons fans in rapt awe as she performed an acapella version of the National Anthem. She definitely has a voice with commercial appeal and a great band. Her songs may be a bit too good for the radio (i.e. too complex), but with more mainstream material (maybe working the Norah Jones vein) there’s no reason she couldn’t be huge.

Jen Porter is a female singer songwriter from Chicago that plays piano rock like… well…rock. All of the songs included on The Jen Porter Project - consisting of three songs from Porter’s debut album Faces and two songs from her sophomore album scheduled for release summer/fall 2002 - move with a soulful groove that’s been long missing in modern piano rock’s progressive leanings. It is hard to pinpoint Porter’s influences, although one has a feeling that if Carly Simon and Stevie Nicks played piano the resulting sound would be similar to that of Jen Porter’s. “Shakespearean Tragedy” is a dramatic ballad formed from piano, strings, and bursts of percussion accompanied by strong vocals. We venture a guess that piano great Elton John influenced this one. On “Ray” and “These are the Days” Porter turns to a lighter sound reminiscent of a certain rock style prevalent in the 70’s or even Sheryl Crow pre “Soak up the Sun”. Porter’s vocals alone are strong enough to carry the whole album (a talent she proudly exhibits on “Last Night”) and with the addition of piano parts that truly rock, The Jen Porter Project reveals Porter as an up and coming talent to be recognized.