Marina And The Diamonds
Electra Heart

2.5/5

There were many aspects I appreciated about the debut of Greek-Welsh Marina Diamandis two years ago.

A unique voice, very skillful in adapting to any genre, great charisma, and complete frankness in not wanting to appear as anything more than what was proposed, which was simple pop, but packaged with care and good taste, giving us, in my opinion, one of the best albums of its genre in recent years.

Many changes, therefore, for this return.

The sound is less and less sophisticated, sometimes even heavily commercial, limited experimentation, more of a total transformation of the character, who has now become, in fact, Electra Heart, the alter ego of the twenty-six-year-old singer: a blonde always dressed in candy pink, who, according to the artist herself, represents the typical American teenager, obsessed with dreams of fame and easy success, raised in a world of plastic and hypocrisy, and thus becoming its slave in turn.

And, if with tracks like the first official single "Primadonna," "Valley Of The Dolls," and the memorable "Fear And Loathing," undoubtedly the highest point of the album, the game "I'm portraying everything I'm fighting against" might work, in moments like "Homewrecker" and "The State Of Dreaming," the young woman seems to take herself a bit too seriously, instilling in the listener the doubt that, behind all this charade, there might indeed be a half-hint of truth in the end.

In short, despite tracks like "Bubblegum Bitch" and "Power & Control," when taken with a grain of salt, could work as simple little pieces of light music, a pervasive scent of falsity and easy success lurks low and looming from the first to the last note of the album.

The doubt arises: does the Marina of "I Am Not A Robot" and "Mowgli's Road" still exist?

To future generations the difficult (?) verdict.