Anna Ternheim's first official full-length release in the U.S., Halfway to Fivepoints is something of a journey through her already successful international career. A critical darling in her native Sweden--where her debut album, 2004's Something Outside, earned her a Swedish Grammy® for Best New Artist--Ternheim has included some of her oldest and newest material on this album. The lone cover song on the disc is an exquisitely strippeddown and slowed cover of Fleetwood Mac's eighties hit "Little Lies." Together, this collection features quickly-written love stories, tales of loneliness, messy lives, stalkers and therapeutic kiss-offs to formers lovers. In tracks like "Lover's Dream," she sought to bring the listener into another realm, one akin to the grainy, black-and-white world found in the memorable 1922 film Nosferatu. It's appropriate, as Ternheim's voice lends a cinematic quality to the disc, at times conjuring Orton's contemplative alt-folk and even the timeless wisdom of Joni Mitchell--sometimes within the same song (as on the album-ending title track). Throughout it all, there's a class to these songs, a beauty to them, and to the transportative quality of Ternheim's sometimes breathy, sometimes sweet voice.
