Review Summary: Gotta build it better.
"Torn" is such a good song. It's a deceptive little pop ditty that revels in its simplicity, using its unpretentious "90's acoustic-pop" structure as an effective means of communicating the lyrics' subtle sense of melancholy and heartache. Natalie Imbruglia's version of "Torn" is uplifting, bittersweet, timeless... and it's pretty much the only thing I'd heard from her until now. That's how the story goes for one-hit wonders, it seems, but honestly, it's the inherent goodness of "Torn" that prompted me to check out
Firebird, Imbruglia's latest release and reportedly her first album of original material in over eleven years. I went into
Firebird expecting songs in the vein of Imbruglia's smash-hit single - personal and intimate yet squeaky-clean pop music with some twists on the genre here and there to keep things fresh.
At first, I was proven right. "Build It Better" is so structurally similar to "Torn" that it sounds like it's trying to intentionally emulate it - same key, same moderate pace, same wistful mood, just given more of a modern-pop bent than the alt-pop production of "Torn". It's a decent toe-tapper, albeit nothing special - the song comfortably floats through your headphones from start to finish at an easy, undemanding pace. "Nothing Missing" is much closer to that rhythmic, melodic sound that one associates with the late 90's era in which "Torn" came out. Acoustic guitars, synths, and pianos intertwine together pretty convincingly, and these first two tracks do a functional job of laying down the singer-songwriter pop groundwork that I was expecting. Nothing stellar, but nothing disheartening.
It doesn't take long for the rest of
Firebird to switch gears and veer off the rails, however. The reverb-soaked "What It Feels Like" sounds indistinguishable from the kind of boilerplate pop you'd hear from the likes of Ellie Goulding or Katy Perry, the chorus pedal-drenched guitars of "On My Way" flirt with a contemporary country sound, and "Maybe It's Great" feels like a lost Footloose song come to life with its chirpy 80's synths and driving backbeat. Couple that in with the jazzy brush-stick percussion of "Just Like Old Times", the waltzy, lilting "Dive To The Deep", and the downright exotic-in-places "River", and one can't help but wonder - what the hell is
Firebird's *sound*? There's a lot of distracting and flashy genre-surfing going on in
Firebird, but it's not experimental or smorgasbord-y enough for me to call it 'ambitious' or 'eclectic'. No,
Firebird suffers from the age-old problem of trying to appeal to every audience possible, and Imbruglia and her crew just don't have the writing chops to make these dips into random-but-accessible genres feel like anything more than a temporary gimmick. And gimmicky
Firebird certainly is - songs like "What It Feels Like", "Maybe It's Great", and even the community-theatre audition song that is the title track are distracting variations from the norm and make
Firebird feel like less of a "Natalie Imbruglia album" and more like a corporate record.
There's a few pleasantries to be had here, but even the highlights aren't much to write home about. "When You Love Too Much" is a gentle, sweet little ballad that brings to mind a version of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" filtered through the lens of Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years". "River", with its echo-laden guitars, airy backing vocals, and chant-like chorus, is probably the most successful dip into genre-blending on the whole record, and I quite like the bossa-nova guitars and the quick, snappy rhythm of "Not Sorry", a solid track whose evolution from its mellow first half into its anthemic second half is buttery-smooth natural and sonically surprising all at once. Apart from these highlights, though, the only intriguing element of
Firebird is Imbruglia's voice, the unambiguous best thing about the whole record. Her voice is emotive, rich, and full of strength, a crystal-clear, mature mezzo-soprano style that provides an interesting evolution of and contrast to the girlish, lightweight Natalie Imbruglia featured on "Torn".
Firebird is tepid - nothing special at the end of the day. Its greatest flaws are common pop music pitfalls - hit-or-miss songwriting, a lack of identity, transparent attempts at appealing to a mass audience without rocking the boat too much. Even so, the inoffensive nature of
Firebird feels... strange. The fact that Imbruglia's presumably been in the industry for almost 25 years now and still put out a record that feels so amorphous and impersonal is perhaps the most disappointing thing about
Firebird. Hopefully
Firebird is nothing more than a stepping stone, a springboard for Imbruglia to get back into the swing of writing songs again. Then maybe, just maybe, the next album might be something special.
