The first thing you notice is the voice. Sweet, husky and hypnotic, it has also been described as being “full of knowing”. And then the songs; honest (sometimes achingly so) and uplifting, melodic and accessible, yet containing a depth that is sometimes belied by the sheer beauty of the music.

Singer/songwriter LauraDoyle’s first CD, “No Easy Answers” (2001) won her instant recognition when her songs were featured prominently in films such as the award winning “Suddenly Naked” and television series like “Dawson’s Creek”. She has a knack for getting to the heart of things and the entertainment industry has noticed. This easy marriage with the screen should come as no surprise, as Doyle began her career in the entertainment industry as a TV screenwriter in Los Angeles and Vancouver on mostly teen programs including "Neon Rider", "Madison", MTV's "Undressed" and the CBS drama "Early Edition".

“Dark Horse” picks up where “No Easy Answers” left off, and reveals growth and greater maturity in Doyle’s music. Recorded live in the studio with her band, Passionfish, the music has an immediacy that is lacking in many contemporary releases, and in all the right ways has the ring of truth about it. The new record is all real, all live off the floor, all performance. With a new band, a new sound and a new producer, Doyle has never sounded better

Finding it difficult to perform the last record live, Laura Doyle decided she wanted to capture the dynamics of what had already been happening in her live shows. The vision was homespun sophistication, a harmonizing of paradoxes, a balancing of polarities. The songs are just that. Both meticulously arranged and yet freely performed by such great players as Randall Stoll (Tom Cochran & kd Lang) on drums, Miles Hill (Roy Forbes, Dee Daniels) on bass and Lanois-esque guitar work from Andreas Schuld. Producer Graeme Coleman steps out as one of the Westcoast's finest musicians on the piano, adding unforgettable motifs and layering in loads of vibe with intuitive and dynamic Hammond B3 organ performances.

Even in the lyric content the paradoxes continue from the profoundly exotic and sultry "In Everything" to the downright cheeky sass in "Someone" where Doyle writes: they say no man's an island /cause we're born without our teeth/ you can tell me love ain't worth it but I've seen the way you weep. Her new material has a worldliness, a maturity; a deep understanding of the folly of obsession, the faithless meandering of the runaway, the daily struggle to stay buoyant. Doyle's songs offer something better than pop confection, something much more than self absorbed navel gazing - in the metaphors, in the poetry, in the hypnotic rhythms and sweet voiced laments you may find a kind of redemption and surprising lightness of being.

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