On her debut release, Alana Davis sets out to stretch the boundaries of soul music and make room for her diverse influences. She treks from spare, finger-snapping blues on "Murder" to hip-hop-inflected crooning in "Love & Pride." On folky numbers like "Turtle" and "Weight of the World" Davis calls to mind Tracy Chapman's recent work while "Lullaby" invokes Joni Mitchell. The best thing here is Davis' edgy voice, but the album's series of mellow songs becomes repetitive after a while. Ironically, the hookiest track here is an evocative rendition of someone else's work -- Ani DiFranco's "32 Flavors."

-- Beth Winegarner

This article was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.