When I first heard the gorgeous timbre of Sia’s voice I found myself immediately wanting to love this record. Sia, the Australian born former lead of the band Zero 7 has been around the block a bit. This should give her an advantage in a market saturated with similar Jazzy/soul/trip hop artists (Duffy, Adele, Feist). Unfortunately for Sia and myself I found this record to be frustratingly inconsistent.
There are moments when you think that she could really be onto something. This is never more true than on the song “Soon we’ll be Found”, which is easily the albums best track. It maximizes everything Sia does right. Her duet with Beck “Academia” is also a solid track. Ballads “Soon you will be loved” and her amazing cover of the Pretenders“ I go to sleep” are both gorgeous songs.
However there are also moments on the rest of the album that just all kind of blend together into a bland vanilla landscape. Songs like “Beautiful Calm Driving” and “Lentil" and "The girl" fall into this category. They are all good songs but I can't help think that they could have been great songs.
All that being said it’s a decent album with some really STELLER songs. Unfortunately the inconsistency of it is not enough to distance Sia from the rest of the pack.
I do encourage you to watch her performance of “Soon you will be loved” from Letterman below. Its one of the BEST Late night TV performance’s I’ve ever seen (painted hands and sign language included)
6.5 out of 10
Download these – “Soon We’ll be found”, “Academia”, “Soon you will be Loved”, “Death by Chocolate”, “I go to sleep”, "buttons"
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