Holly McNarland is one of those rare female vocalists, whose voice isn't breathy or cute, but packs a wallop that can literally affect your body. Listen to her new albums and while her whisper-to-a-scream voice may soothe on some songs, it can send shivers up your spine at the same time.

The Vancouver-based siren's voice is so intense yet vulnerable that it stirs emotions in listeners they didn't know they had. Holly is a singing paradox, a super-charged pint-sized phenom both delicate and strong.

Much has happened since the young singer-songwriter with the astounding pipes busted out with a set of you-said-it-girl anthems on her 1997 Universal debut, Stuff, and 1995 independent EP, Sour Pie. She married, she mothered, she matured - in that order.

"I have changed," Holly says. "I had a baby. I grew up. It's been five years and a lot of those songs that were on Stuff were written a couple of years before they were out. I was 19 when I wrote 'Numb.' 'Elmo,' I was 21. So the music is going to change. I didn't want to put out the same album."

After winning a Juno Award for "Best New Solo Artist" in 1998, Holly was at the peak of her career. Her debut album Stuff had gone Platinum and she was touring across Canada and the U.S., playing to audiences of thousands. Then she did the unthinkable ? disappeared from the public eye to focus on starting a family. She and her husband moved from the corporate hub of Toronto back to the chilled setting of Vancouver to give birth to songs and a son.

Just before her son greeted the world, the songs started to flow. With her husband electing to stay home for a year, she had the luxury of disappearing to another room to demo on mini disk or on her answering machine. She had the perfect stay-at-home job. While some nosy folk inquired if she was going to have more children, implying she had a career to focus on, Holly believes, "few would ask touring fathers the same question."

After spending some time songwriting in England, Holly went to Malibu to work with producer Mark Howard (The Tragically Hip, Emmylou Harris, The Neville Brothers), recording six songs for the album, Home Is Where My Feet Are, including "Brush Into My Tears" with its sexy rock chorus. To round out the album, Holly entered The Warehouse Studios in Vancouver with Warne Livesey (Matthew Good Band, Midnight Oil). He produced "Beautiful Blue", "Voices", "Watching Over You", "Do You Get High" and "Losing My Face".

With her upcoming album "Chin Up Buttercup" finished and slated for an April 2007 release, Holly is will be back climbing the charts and touring the world.

Videos

Official Site
MySpace
Facebook