The Whistle Only Dogs Can Hear

Last Updated : 04-Apr-99

Dirty vs. Clean
Waiting
Arms
Do Right
Soft Picasso
Lucky Nights
Dirtclod
Map
I am getting better
Nothing Takes the Place of You
The Idea of You
King Me
Feel Good Hit
Blue Magic
All is Well

Released in 1996, by Long Play Records.

The following review appeared in the 9/4/96 issue of the Florida Flambeau. It was written by Ama Reynolds.

: Kelly Hogan's voice is a reckonable power, up there with angels and the things that make you shudder at night. A friend once told me she'd sell her soul to the devil to have a voice like Hogan's, to be able to release a sound both beautiful and frightening, a sound so pure that it almost gives justice to the violence of emotion on the inside. Beauty is at its truest when it's unsettling, when it makes you uncertain, nervous. This first solo release from Hogan is unsettling and comforting at the same time. It's full of heartbreak in the same way the best country and R&B songs are - heartbreak so desperate you can almost laugh about it. Though definitely not traditional country (or traditional anything), this album certainly has a country twang to it, a fevered heartbeat of drums throughout, and blues of the Otis Redding sort - soul, distortion, a Vic Chesnutt cover, a Will Oldham cover. All songs are love songs. Most of the songs are Hogan's own, co-written with former Jody Grind partner Bill Taft. Whether they are hers or not, Hogan makes the words sound like her own. She's purely involved in every sentiment. Listening to this record is like reading a modern southern Gothic love story, except there's nothing really surreal about the story, nothing you can put your finger on - except perhaps the rhythm to each song, the unbalanced heartbeat of the whole album. Kelly Hogan was the lead singer for the late, great Jody Grind. She plays guitar for the Rock a Teens. She was singing for a band called Kick Me, touring the south. She's from Atlanta. She has a beautiful speaking voice as well as a phenomenal singing voice. She wears vintage suits. She rocks. She'll be playing the Cow Haus in mid- September. Go see her and fall in love.