•
Rating: Marina Diamandis has never had her talent questioned, but whether she knows how to use it best is a whole other story. Because if "The Family Jewels" remains an authentic gem capable of outshining much of pop's releases in the past five years, "Electra Heart" had raised concerning alarm bells: was the fortunate and successful major label debut just a mere and isolated flash in the pan? It's still difficult to give a definite answer, although it's true that with the newly released "FROOT", Diamandis doesn't quite reach the heights of her debut again (the times of "Numb" and "Mowgli's Road" are, alas, ever more distant), those who feared she had sold her soul to the charts can breathe a sigh of relief.
Sure, there are a couple of tracks that are a bit too radio-friendly (above all "Blue" and "I'm a Ruin", which promises well until it culminates in an irritating Kiesza-style chorus... but no, thank you!), which might have looked better as b-sides of some singles. But truth be told, the track-list presents a series of tracks far from unpleasant and decidedly varied: from the smart disco of the title track to the pop-rock of "Better Than That" and "Forget", through the playful synth-pop of "Gold" and the almost dark atmospheres of "Savages" (a song also enhanced by remarkable lyrics), not to overlook a couple of excellent ballads (the opener "Happy" and "Immortal", the true gem of the album), there's really something for everyone, and in these cases, Diamandis's writing manages to place several memorable choruses in less than a second, but she does so without them being irritating or shamelessly chart-focused (the particular vocals of the Welsh singer-songwriter and her interpretive abilities help a lot in this regard).
It is also worth noting how, despite the plethora of genres compressed into a single album, "FROOT" still manages to sound like a unique and cohesive record in terms of sounds, something that is becoming increasingly rare in the pop field, and that, combined with the absence of any abstruse and far-fetched concepts to serve as the background for the album, represents a return to a simpler form of pop, but not for this reason banal, reminiscent of "The Family Jewels": simple songs, immediately catchy, but that stand the test of time and prove to be integral parts of a single entity. In short, we may not have a work as fresh as the aforementioned debut in our hands, but compared to "Electra Heart", "FROOT" is a significant step forward and an injection of confidence and curiosity towards its author, as we wait to see what her unpredictable future will offer us.
Rating: 3.5
Tracklist
Loading comments slowly
