Music review
After taking the indie route with her 1999 debut “Brief Strop,” English singer-songwriter Sheila Nicholls gives her career a chance to grow with a major-label follow-up, “Wake.” The Los Angeles-based artist also explores different ways to express herself with the help of a few experienced producers – a smart move, probably, because self-produced albums tend to sound amateurish, and albums with a single producer tend to reflect the producer’s vision more than the performer’s.
Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, No Doubt) is Nicholls’ key collaborator on “Wake,” pushing her perhaps beyond her comfort level to put exclamation points on her complex lyrics in the pop/rock head-check tracks “How Strong,” “Faith” and “Ruby.” Those emphatic cuts are balanced by a couple of collaborations with Jez Colin (Morcheeba, Bjork), who helps wrap Nicholls in the toasty comfort of warm dub beats and understated vocals on “Bread and Water” and “Come to Me.”
Meanwhile, Jakko Jakszyk guides Nicholls through the more orchestrated drama of “Maze” and “Moth and the Streetlight” as well as a slightly exotic folk rendition of the Leslie Duncan number “Love Song.” Most impressive in “Wake” is that Nicholls’ distinctive identity perseveres through all arrangements, her lived-in vocals and earnest philosophy always at the heart of the stimulating sounds, no matter how low-key or over-the-top.
Rating: 4
“Bloodsport,” Sneaker Pimps
Sneaker Pimps’ “Bloodsport” is one of the most daring releases of 2002, but more for its risky strategy than its bold sound.
The one thing Americans would most associate with the British group – singer Kelli Dayton – is gone. And rather than replace her with some other languid-singing female vocalist, Sneaker Pimps simply moved guitarist Chris Corner to the microphone.
Dayton has been M.I.A. for years, actually – almost since the group’s 1997 debut “Becoming X” yielded the atmospheric hit “6 Underground.” Yet although the group carried on in its homeland with 1999’s “Splinter,” “Bloodsport” is the first release the quartet has had in the United States in five years.
Considering Corner’s dissimilarity to Dayton, the band might as well have changed its name. Not only has the gender swap made a huge difference in tone, Dayton’s deliberate, lulling approach has been traded for Corner’s histrionics, and rather than her distinctive delivery, the Sneaker Pimps are now anchored to his rote voice.
Still, Corner has his moments, especially when his bandmates give him the lush synthetic support they conjured on “Becoming X.” The group captures fidgety desperation on the dancey title track via grainy rhythms and springy beats. And on the bumping “Think Harder,” the Sneaker Pimps billow by Goth-sounding Corner with plunging loops and aired-out guitar. The singer’s best stand comes on first single “Sick,” a mostly dull mash of clunky beats and repetitive bass that fills the spaces between the redeeming choruses of Corner’s provocative falsetto flips.
For a band that helped pioneer the relaxed use of electronic-beat music, Sneaker Pimps sound improbably dated with an ill-suited infusion of New Wave drama on “Kiro TV” and “Small Town Witch” and inescapably dull on dirges such as “Black Sheep” and “M’Aidez.”
Interestingly, the band recruits a couple of women singers (Zoe Durrant and Sue Denim) to lend support to a handful of tracks, though they are so under-employed, their input is irrelevant. Perhaps next time the group will give them a stronger voice. Or better, put one of them at lead vocals.
Rating: 2.5
(Contact Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at http://www.knoxnews.com.)
(Contact Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at http://www.knoxnews.com.)