salivation's Full Review: Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor
Make no mistake, Regina Spektor’s Begin to Hope is ultimately every bit as creative and silly as her previous outings. However, as is the typical nature of all things cult, or kvlt, or \m/ kvult \m/, what occurs is the natural process of taking someone way out there and looking at ‘er close up. Fortunately Regina is talented enough to make this a fantastic listen with our without the heady “Half-goth poetry corner” vibe, although it’s mildly disheartening that someone’s replaced a lot of her sugar with artificial sweetener.
Prime example, of course, is Fidelity. It’s much like her previous work in that she completely envelops it with warmth and silliness and kitsch (the soviet kind). Realistically, though, it is from a non-Regina fan perspective, another ho-hum hummable pop song with halfhearted confessional lyrics. But fortunately Fidelity is usually the exception and not the rule, as things lighten up significantly after and branch out a bit after that.
Better is ironically not that much better but it’s a step in the right direction. Hardcore fans (You know, those weird ones who have a lot of free time and make up words like “spektoritis” to describe their infatuation) still won’t be sold, but then in waltzes the absolutely beautiful and wrenching Samson to fix things up a bit. Yeah, it’s one of her older songs, but she’s propped it up nicely here, taking a story from out of nowhere and using her writing skills to wrap it up in a very fragile and delicate beauty that probably best ascribes itself to the experience of having your hair cut and your strength silently drained as you sleep.
One advantage that Begin to Hope has over other Spektor albums is that it has a sense of consistency and flow in the production that keeps you tuned in even if it’s not always A material. Soviet Kitsch felt a lot more personal and darker and, well, crazy, but it was put together for cheap and it really felt like a bunch of songs stitched together because of that. Kitsch was better, but I would be willing to bet Begin to Hope would get a lot more spins with fans and newcomers alike because the songs all feel like extensions of the same session.
With something like Hotel Song, it may not be the most articulately crafted of her tracks, but it sticks because it has exactly the catch, flow, lyrics and production it needs to make sure your ears would perk up a little if you heard it at random. And then have your brain scream “What the hell?” as she chants “A little bag ‘o cocain, a little bag o’ cocaine” at random intervals.
If you want the bizarre and different you get a good bit of that too, which is good, because what good is almost 50 minutes with Regina Spektor if she’s not going to show you she’s got all the ticks and quirks of all the best and worst writers in recorded history. 20 years of Snow is one of those songs that makes your brain itch. It introduces a tiny mouse captain of a character and then tells a story that could be sad or optimistic depending on the angles that the notes strike your inner ear. Either way you will be wondering what And the navigators with their mappy maps and moldy heads and p***ing on sugarcubes is meant to mean in small pieces let alone in one huge nauseating chunk.
You can also gauge your curiosity with all things surly arabesque piano with Apres Moi which is probably the closest thing to Soviet Kitsch or Maryann Meets the Gravediggers material. Pretty much a dirge through winter with frostbitten fingers, it rolls out with some very classical piano on her part along with sparse marimba and a vulgar beat that hijacks the ending for the single most intense moment on the album. Former listeners might be disappointed that there aren’t more chunks of the album like this, and that it aims far more often for frail and yearning ballads, which aren’t bad, but not great. There’s some good content in Field Below, Lady, and Summer in the City, but none of these are truly the highlights of the album, and that’s a problem.
You also get the punk-rock outtake of That Time and the legend-of-zelda-on-crack sound of Edit, in which I half expecting two dimensional skeletons to start charging me head on in a massive duel each time the song plays.
Ultimately the experience of “Begin to Hope” is a weird one. It’s almost like a sparse indie piano songstress is trying to do more lighthearted pop songs with simple beats and a bigger emphasis on production. Wait a minute, it’s exactly that! Still pretty good though.
Begin To Hope finds anti-folk chanteuse Regina Spektor taking a small step away from piano balladry into the brave new world of the pop song. And what...More at Buy.com
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