Missy Roback has assembled a stellar cast of San Francisco’s best session musicians for the melancholy affair that is her debut recording, Just Like Breathing. Her husband Steven Roback (ex-Rain Parade, Viva Saturn) produced the recording and added flourishes of guitars, keyboards and bass; Tim Mooney (ex-American Music Club) supplies drums where necessary, and Leigh Gregory and Grant Miller (Mandible Chatter) contributed on guitars. But Just Like Breathing is entirely Roback’s own project.

Her subtly aching voice earns comparison to Aimee Mann, as well as Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval. She wrote all 11 cuts on the CD and added stark piano on the deceitful but breathtaking title track. Here she makes the creative analogy of comparing a lover’s lie to the simplicity of taking a breath—a stark and harrowing tune, honest in its raw emotion. Roback’s sincerity and credibility are her strengths as she tackles love and love lost. On “Sight Unseen,” she looks back in hindsight at a relationship that might have been had the narrator made smarter choices. She’s lost in the movies of her hometown playing in her head on “New Britain.”

With the solid production and musicianship of the stellar cast behind her, Missy Roback’s Just Like Breathing is an excellent debut from a talented songwriter. — Bill Clifford