By Heather Yarnell, March 2008

It's been three years since Vanessa Carlton released her underappreciated Harmonium, an uneven but promising second set that displayed a developing songcraft not previously displayed on her debut. Songs like "White Houses" and "Annie" remain undiscovered gems while "She Floats" and "The Wreckage" offered creepy counterparts to Carlton's normally sugary subject matter. For Heroes, she has left behind the stark, biting tones that encompassed Harmonium's final tracks and allowed a warmth to envelop her wistful musings. With production and co-songwriting credits split between Linda Perry and Third Eye Blind singer (and Carlton ex) Stephan Jenkins, Carlton continues her infatuation with piano-led puppy love confessions. Whether reminiscing a love lost or declaring her devotion to a current beau, Heroes & Thieves is a bittersweet, lovey dovey affair. Over the course of the past few years, a pattern has emerged that Carlton is a writer particularly inspired by her physical surroundings and, at times, quite specifically. Where Harmonium featured a direct homage to her then-locale of San Francisco, this time it's New York City's Nolita neighborhood that has become her muse. On the album's lead single, the fiercely personal "Nolita Fairytale," Carlton sings the praises of her rent-controlled lifestyle between rhythmic marching band drums, proudly dismissing her former record label and name-dropping Stevie (as in Nicks) in thanks for her moral support. Two tracks later, "Spring Street," another ode to NYC and perhaps the album's best song, illustrates a coming of age tale that finds Carlton striking out to begin a life separate from relatives and former flames and, eventually, start her own family. Though by album's end Carlton has concluded that for her, home is not a place but a person, that can't keep her from daydreaming in "Hands On Me" of where her restless soul might be heading to next:

We'd cross the deepest oceans
Cargo across the sea
We'll climb Tibetan mountains
Where we can barely breathe.

From there, "Fools Like Me" wraps Carlton's frustration up in one of Heroes' best vocal performances and Nicks pops up again, this time to personally provide a backing vocal in "The One." Following an album that displayed Carlton's undeniable growth as a musician and storyteller, you can't help but feel that Heroes is a step backward. No doubt the writing that she has put into this ongoing musical travelogue of sorts is just as personal as it was three years ago, but nothing here grabs you like "White Houses" or "Annie." It's all a little too safe, a little too famliar, a little too flat. Though Harmonium showed promise, nothing about Heroes & Thieves builds upon it.