Regarding her second album, the eminent The Reminder, there are songs that make me love Leslie Feist, namely I Feel It All and My Moon My Man and there are songs that make me want to use the record as a Frisbee, the kind that gets chewed to shreds by your dog. Ok, maybe it’s not her fault that 1,2,3,4 is synonymous with about ten advertisements as it undoubtedly aided in her popularity, reaching a demographic from indie kids to middle-aged housewives i.e. Question Time and Corrie viewers alike. I am of course being overly abrasive to make the point that I hope her latest album consists of songs of the same caliber as The Limit To Your Love and is vacant of tracks in the same vein as “that song from that advert”. However, the question is, how will this affect its popularity with the masses when it comes to a middle-class dinner party?
I first call to the stand the single from the album, How Come You Never Go There?, which indeed is the most similar to 1,2,3,4 in terms of its potential as an obvious hit. However this would be an overstatement as in honesty, there are few parallels to be drawn between the two. In fact, the whole album seems like it has been recorded far from commercial TV and indeed civilization itself, possibly in a Canadian Forest with surrounding Centaurs. There are no hints that Feist is trying to please her current following, it appears as more of an album for her own consumption. Her approach is refreshing even in a world not lacking in female vocalists that can be described by referencing Billie Holliday, moreover its lack-of-influences originality exudes modernity. This is odd considering the album is more lo-fi and rough around the edges than its predecessor.
The singles title rhetoric followed by the line “How come I’m so alone there”, describes the morose tone of the album. The song is jerky and has a strange time signature compared to its flowing, upbeat forerunner. Undiscovered First sounds like a Robert Plant country song that was conceived around a campfire. It is probably the most uplifting song on the album but so is the case with country music, there is still a thread of Macabre. By the end of the song, it has progressed into a head-banging loud stomp where Feist flourishes out of subtlety and really lets loose. It is remarkable how much different she sounds without the jazz kookiness. Feist is also a lot louder on Comfort Me where she explores her vocal range. A Commotion is pretty much a garage rock tune that meets shabby chic (Black Keys Vs Cath Kidston?) that turns out as another welcome addition to the already multi-faceted album. There are a few songs that are just a bit too subtle and indistinct from each other so that you can play each one back to back and you won’t notice the change.
To conclude I think that if Feist tried to recreate the pop songs of The Reminder, it would have seemed like a bit of a carry on. Her back-to-nature where the charts don’t exist attitude was definitely the right decision and she has turned out an exceptional album.
