Tenacious Heart

The Ottawa Citizen, Saturday August 6th, 2005

By Patrick Langston

Ottawa singer/songwriter Ana Miura makes a solid debut with this EP, which consists of all-original material and a refreshing variety of approaches rooted in pop, folk and jazz.  Miura, a CBC Galaxie Rising Stars finalist, is particularly adept at rendering emotional and physical landscapes, and does an often memorable job of depicting the complexities of love.  Striving for poetry in her lyrics, Miura needs to work more at her writing to smooth away the occasional awkward transition, obvious statement and implausible metaphor ("But we will exhaust each other/ With the breaths of a whale," she sings in TransCanada).  Miura accompanies herself on guitar, her fluid style a perfect accompaniment to her warm, well-modulated vocals, while Dave Gaudet and others round out the instrumental background.