Regina Spektor "Begin to Hope" (Sire)
By Lucas Salg
Monday. Jun 26, 11:25 AM
An enormously engaging voice set to idiosyncratic cabaret pop.

Russian-born chanteuse Regina Spektor has an enormously engaging voice. A really terrific voice, somewhere between Billie Holliday and Cat Power, and she's got a great grasp of phrasing and delivery; she has a playful theatricality to her vocal performance along the lines of of Nellie McKay but not as, you know, annoying and pretentious. She plays piano and a bunch of other instruments or her major label debut Begin to Hope, but it's her voice that really shines here. And it makes the otherwise unremarkable songs here more engaging than they have any right to be.

The music on Begin to Hope is, to put it mildly, not my cup of tea. It's straightforward piano-driven pop a la Tori Amos or Sarah MacLachlan with some tame Björk-esque flourishes here and there. The advance single "Better" is built around a fairly boring chord progression, with some typically listless electric guitar courtesy of The Strokes' Nick Valensi. It pretty much screams "Top 40 adult contemporary radio." If there were any other voice besides Regina behind the mic it all would have rendered me comatose, but her voice somehow makes this perfectly plain song a decent listen. "Fidelity" is a little more adventurous musically, built around staccato string plucks and a lilting melody, but again it's Regina's gift for phrasing and her sweet-sounding pipes that make the song a winner. There are also a plethora of piano ballads like "Samson" and "Field Below" that succeed on the strength of Regina's voice, in spite of the soporific pace and autopilot piano.

In fact, despite the fact that I have virtually zero interest in this kind of music, I found myself returning for repeat listens based solely on Spektor's charming vocals. I'm certainly a fan of her voice, but not so much her arrangements. If you like piano-based singer/songwriters like Fiona Apple or Nellie McKay's self-consciously idiosyncratic cabaret pop, you'll probably dig Regina. She has such a great voice, I really wanted to like these songs more than I did, but I can't see myself buying the whole record. Regina Spektor is obviously talented, but I wish she would lend her voice and instrumental skills to more interesting songs.
www.reginaspektor.com
www.sirerecords.com

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Lucas Salg

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