Gina Villalobos - live review - Bristol, St Bonaventure's - Venue Magazine Gina Villalobos St Bonaventures Social Club 4/5/05 The Sheryl Crow comparisons are barely even defensible. Cos while Gina Villalobos shares the same serated purr and cracked howl as Crow, she occupies a far bleaker world, a world where hopes are dashed and lovers watch their relationships crumble hopelessly in front of their eyes. If '04's 'Rock'n'Roll Pony' occasionally teeters towards MOR drive-time country and pedal-steel driven AOR, tonight Villalobos is nothing short of heartbreaking, stripping World Party's previously ubiquitous (and, to be honest, hackneyed) 'Put The Message In The Box' back to the bone. Elsewhere, 'Faded' sounds bruised and war-weary, Villalobos' hushed whispers resignedly casting away another lost love ("If I was normal/It just might be painless") around sparse guitar flecks, whilst you can practically see her lonely figure kicking stones at the side of a sun-beat dust track on 'What I'd Give,' another lost-love slipping through her fingers. Tonight, a haunted, bourbon-drenched star has been born. (Tim Bailey)