(Requinto Records)
It may not be overwhelmingly hipster to speak well of a TV actress – especially one whose hottie days peaked during a stint at LA Law – but Michele Greene’s heart is in the right place, donating proceeds from this CD to Amnesty International’s campaign for justice for abducted and murdered women in Ciudad Juarez. And besides, she’s a recurring cast member on David Mamet’s The Unit, so it’s antiestablishmentally okay to relax a bit here and see what she’s got to say musically. Singing mainly in Spanish, Greene’s work is an ultra-mild blend of romantic Spanish folk, mostly suited to the rumba owing to its slowness, so you can throw thoughts of Dancing With the Stars right out of your head. Her voice is nervously fragile on the surface but carries no small amount of inner strength, this obviously jibing with her activist sensibilities, with which she thankfully chooses not to club listeners over the head. Most surprisingly, all the material was written by Greene and producer Ciro Hurtado save for a cover of Springsteen’s “Across the Border” that’s as PBS as a documentary on bootmaking at Valley Forge.
