Neither Light Nor Flakey: Sia's Lovely Lady Croissant
Written: May 10 '07 (Updated May 10 '07)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Strong live performances, and an adorable new studio single. An excellent introduction to Sia.
Cons: We waited two years... for this?
The Bottom Line: In which the author still associates Sia's voice with Lauren Ambrose's face.
|
|
|
| plorentz's Full Review: Lady Croissant by Sia |
The Australian alterna-pop singer Sia (Furler) may already be settling (unfortunately, I think) into one-demi-hit-wonder status, based on the exposure her breathy, atmospheric 2004 single "Breathe Me" received as the soundtrack to the last (marvelous) scene of the last (weepy) episode of the last (wrenching) season of Six Feet Under; a suggestion supported, at least on paper, by the release of her new album Lady Croissant this spring, nearly three years after the appearance (internationally) of the nice but somewhat indistinguishable Colour the Small One, her breakthrough solo album (she'd previously sung with the electronic chill-out collective Zero 7), which finally got a domestic release in January 2006.
A mostly live album with eight songs recorded at a 2006 show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York with a more-than-able five-piece band (guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, and... cello, of course) including occasional R.E.M. cohort Joey Waronker on drums; and a single studio track called "Pictures", a charming little pop ditty with a sticky-sweet Jolly Rancher melody and a witty, sympathetically knowing vocal, more Natasha Bedingfield than Tori Amos (though she almost certainly shares more of her audience with the latter), set to perky, staccatoed electric piano chords - it sounds, for the better, like an affectionate cover of a long lost XTC single - a winning foil to the moody whisper of "Breathe Me", that sadly, is one of very few hints of newness on offer with Lady Croissant. What's really sad is that, in the context of what follows, "Pictures" feels like an afterthought - padding for what is actually a very strong, if also pretty brief (not a bad thing!), live survey of Sia's career to date - a sort of retrospective for an artist that still hasn't produced enough to really warrant one.
Even given the inauspiciousness of releasing a small live album in the place of an already long overdue studio follow-up, Lady Croissant is, in both material and performance, clearly superior to the not-at-all-bad Colour the Small One. For one thing, since the material here is essentially a collection of highlights, four songs from her first two studio albums, two more that she sang with Zero 7, a well-chosen cover of (a Pretenders cover of) the Kinks' "I Go To Sleep", along with another new song called "Lentil", marked by a playfully jazzy stand-up bass shuffle on the verses. But the already uniformly strong material is heightened by the band's alchemic performances and Sia's liberated singing, far more spontaneous and soulful on stage than on record.
At times - most notably on Zero 7's magnificently romantic "Destiny", whose icy studio chill becomes a fiery, epiphanic swoon on stage (to the audience's obvious delight) - her loosened delivery tends to devolve into so much indecipherable vocal noodling. She has a tendency to lose her consonants entirely. But she always makes sure we know what's she's singing when it really matters, and she gives songs like "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Blow It All Away" a hard, demanding edge. And if her performance of "Breathe Me" feels a little obligatory, she more than compensates with a climactically soulful reading of Zero 7's "Distractions", which may be reason enough to want to have this album.
Brevity certainly works in the album's favor - every cut here is choice, and nothing feels less than eventful. And, as unassuming as it is, the album's art direction works in its favor too - understated and unusually elegant, very little by way of notes, but lots of well-composed, well-chosen, and well-arranged photos documenting the show. Lady Croissant offers a great introduction (certainly better than either of her actual studio albums) to who Sia is as a artist, a convincing document of a sorely underrated singer. Now, if only she didn't sound so much like a Drew Barrymore character when she says "thank you"...
- - - - -
BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Lady Croissant" by Sia
Astralwerks Records
Released 4/3/07
Produced by Dan Carey
40 min.
SONGS: Pictures - Don't Bring Me Down - Destiny - Blow It All Away - Lentil - Numb - I Go To Sleep - Breathe Me - Distractions
- - - - -
MORE SIA:
Colour the Small One (2006)
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
plorentz
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Paul Lorentz
Location: The Land of Limburger and Leinenkugel's
Reviews written: 946
Trusted by: 280 members
About Me:
Somebody turn the lights on...
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.