Best of NYC #21:April Smith, Live at The Bell House, July 22

The Deli Magazine’s pride and joy for several years, Brooklyn’s April Smith and the Great Picture Show, have been ascending since their number five ranking in The Deli’s “Year End Best of NYC 2008 Poll.” Their latest, self-released album, “Songs for a Sinking Ship,” debuted this past February, elicits images of a jazz lounge aboard a pirate cruise. On particularly notable tracks, the suggestive, rowdy, and anxiously paced “Terrible Things,” and “Colors,” a cheerful tune that embraces a calypso inflection, lighthearted grace, and amusing, vocally-created trumpet sounds, April Smith showcases her virtuoso, powerful, bluesy voice, and all-around sass. Ragtime piano and a cabaret cadence, blended with horn counter-melodies on the saloon-ballad “Can’t Say No,” and “Movie Loves a Screen’s” Caribbean beat, patter chorus, lilting trumpet lines, plus Smith’s dazzling vocals, define the album’s sunny theme. Because April Smith and the Great Picture Show’s swooning seductiveness and flamboyant flare set the band apart from many on the current Indie scene, the group will retain their distinctive presence on the press and audience radar. – Meijin Bruttomesso