CD: Regina Spektor - What We Saw From The Cheap Seats

Quirky New Yorker's sixth album makes up in loveliness what it lacks in coherency

share this article

It's been six years since Regina Spektor released Begin to Hope, a festival-friendly breakthrough album with a poppy sheen that easily loaned itself to mobile phone network marketing campaigns and the like. Six years then since the Moscow-born Bronx-raised artist, a tiny human beatbox with a shock of curls, took the kooky-girl-with-piano shtick into the mainstream. And yet, as this follow-up to 2009's Far makes clear, there's only so much of what makes Regina Spektor, well, Regina that can be major-label sanitised.

What We Saw from the Cheap Seats begins simply enough: a poppy, piano-and-vocal number that wouldn't have seemed out of place on either of the last two albums, until its gentle musing about the difficulty of growing up and moving on from one's roots - albeit one where the place you are looking to leave is in your own head – bursts into a slightly manic vocal breakdown. It sets the tone for an album that cuts and pastes pretty much every incarnation of Regina Spektor into one place.

If quirky singalong pop is your thing, a modern-day reworking of "Don't Leave Me (Ne Quitte Pas)" is one of the most uplifting examples of the genre Spektor has ever produced. If you're more of a fan of the singer's more eccentric vocal experimentation, all whoops and hollers and strange accents, "Oh Marcello" might prove an easier listen than I found it. "All the Rowboats" is a claustrophobic, heavily-percussive song delivered from the perspective of museum exhibits trapped under glass and "Open" is ghostly, churchlike and powerful. Piano-driven ballad "Firewood" abandons the histrionics in favour of a simple composition as beautiful as its subject material is sombre.

The result is an album that's made for modern-day shuffle, as fuel for 2012's most heartfelt mixtapes, rather than to be listened to as a satisfying whole. Still, even during its weakest moments the sheer charm of its oft-lovelorn, sometimes childlike lyrics could raise a smile from the stoniest heart. The piano is not firewood yet, indeed.

Watch the video for "All the Rowboats"

Comments

Permalink
Regina Spektor fans, check out the new highly recommended EP from songwriter Sara Bareilles called Once Upon Another Time. You can even grab a free download of her new song Stay from her website!
Permalink
Spektor is not a Brooklynite - she is from the Bronx. also, it is her sixth, not fifth album...

Add comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
Even during its weakest moments the sheer charm of its oft-lovelorn, sometimes childlike lyrics could raise a smile from the stoniest heart

rating

3

share this article

the future of arts journalism

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

more new music

A new Renaissance at this Moroccan festival of global sounds
The very opposite of past it, this immersive offering is perfectly timed
Hardcore, ambient and everything in between
A major hurdle in the UK star's career path proves to be no barrier
Electronic music perennial returns with an hour of deep techno illbience
What happened after the heart of Buzzcocks struck out on his own
Fourth album from unique singer-songwriter is patchy but contains gold
After the death of Mimi Parker, the duo’s other half embraces all aspects of his music
Experimental rock titan on never retiring, meeting his idols and Swans’ new album
Psychedelic soft rock of staggering ambition that so, so nearly hits the brief
Nineties veterans play it safe with their latest album