Style: Mellow singer/songwriter fare; compare to Cat Power, Joanna Newsom, Kate Bush
Top tracks: “Anti Pioneer,” “The Bad in Each Other,” “Get it Wrong, Get it Right”
Remember that catchy little sing-along “1234”—a song so addictive it was used to sell iPods, then to teach kids to count on Sesame Street? Well its composer, Leslie Feist, seems doggedly determined to make you forget it. Her new album, Metals, seems designed to eliminate even the slightest chance of replicating the last record’s surprising pop success; the whole thing is immaculately produced, emphasizing textures and cerebral arrangements, as well as Feist’s own status as an indie chanteuse, but there isn’t a singalong or even a memorable hook to be found. The result is pretty and pleasant but never particularly fun; as such, her meditations on troubled romances are at once soulful and oddly inaccessible.
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