Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions Shannon Curfman Arista, 2000 Buy it online Tracks 1: Few and Far Between 2: No Riders 3: True Friends 4: If You Change Your Mind 5: Love Me Like That 6: Playing With Fire 7: I Don't Make Promises (I Can't Break) 8: Hard to Make a Stand 9: The Weight 10: Never Enough 11: I'm Coming Home Reviewed by Linda Richards	There's something vaguely frightening about Shannon Curfman's debut album Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions. It's not the music itself that's frightening. The album is well executed, produced and performed. The scary stuff comes from Shannon herself. As the album's title promises, the guitars are loud. More: Curfman's voice is big and her musicianship doesn't seem to leave any room for growth. She's that good. And all of this, please remember, from a musician who was 13 years old when much of this album was recorded. Though she sings about love and hurt and leaving someone behind, by her own admission it'll be another couple of years before she's even allowed to date. This juxtaposition -- the big voiced, guitar prodigy against the backdrop of such tender years -- makes Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions a somewhat difficult album to review. Little girls, after all, aren't supposed to sound like this. Be like this. They're supposed to sound and look like Britney Spears: bubblegum and complicated costume changes. Pre-packaged albums and nervous stage moms. Curfman is none of these things. She is -- or at the very least, seems to be -- the genuine article. The kind of talent and polish that makes one whisper "genius" and wait hard to see what will happen next. This is the blues the way they were meant to be played and sung: with heady guitar licks and confident vocals that pump straight back to the history of the genre. It's impossible not to compare Curfman's sound to some of the better known contenders on the rock/blues charts. Melissa Ethridge, Jeff Healy, Bonnie Raitt. Curfman takes songwriting credit on seven of the 11 songs on Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions as well as vocal and guitar credit throughout the album. It seems appropriate that fellow Minneapolis teenage blues guitar virtuoso, Jonny Lang, lends his talent to Curfman's debut album. Lang's own debut album, Lie To Me brought raves out of the blues community and marked the then-16-year-old as an artist to watch. Though Lang is reputedly currently in the studio working on an album slated for an autumn 2000 release, he found time to do extensive work on Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions. Lang shares writing credit on "Love Me Like That," with Curfman and Kevin Bowe as well as a guitar solo on "True Friends," and lends his playing to "I'm Coming Home" and Curfman's gritty cover of Sheryl Crow's "Hard to Make a Stand." Though most of the material on Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions is original to this album, the two covers are also noteworthy. Besides the very excellent cover of the Crow song, Curfman does a surprising interpretation of the Robbie Robertson standard "The Weight," originally recorded by The Band. Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions is an auspicious debut. It marks Shannon Curfman as a blues musician worth watching. | June 2000 Linda L. Richards is the editor of Blue Coupe and the author of Mad Money.	Curfman is -- or at the very least, seems to be -- the genuine article. The kind of talent and polish that makes one whisper "genius" and wait hard to see what will happen next. This is blues the way they were meant to be played and sung: with heady guitar licks and confident vocals that pump straight back to the history of the genre.