Music Review: Feist – The Reminder
If one thing is a given among female vocalists it’s the need, however subconsciously, to contort their voices to an acceptable tonal template. If you’re a Caucasian, you’re expected to be a withering, brooding flower, or perhaps an effigy of the 80s Punk Girl. If you’re African American, Puerto Rican, or Latina, you’re clandestine purpose is to undulate your pitch to no end, or maybe mimic the soul power of the 60s icons like Aretha Franklin. Leslie Feist obviously didn’t get that memo. If any female vocalist can command such a disparate range of emotions and styles in a single record, Feist does it with The Reminder.
From the start, she displays a firm grasp on soul and rock elements on the forlorn “So Sorry” and the excellent, auto-therapeutic “I Feel It All”. The Reminder features vastly remodeled ideas from Let it Die’s competent groundwork – “1 2 3 4” sounds like a twice-removed, banjo toting relative of her initial hit “Mushaboom”.
A few tunes on the second half of The Reminder prevent it from being the perfect manifestation of Feist’s talent. “Brandy Alexander” sports a tired finger-snapping rhythm and lyrics too cyclically boring to evoke anything meaningful. “Intuition” follows with an echoed crowd response ending, that could be neat in an auditorium full of people, but it seems overly huge for the small confines of the slow acoustic number. Fortunately Leslie recovers nicely with the synth blips and syrupy vocal swells of “Honey Honey” and the snug closing duet “How My Heart Behaves” featuring Kings of Convenience singer Eirik Glambek Boe.
“Sea Lion Woman” the solitary cover on The Reminder (courtesy of Nina Simone) best diagrams Feist’s maturity as an arranger and a complete vocalist. Roaring, grinding guitars meld effortlessly with silky smooth, lounging vocals. “Limit To Your Love” is also particularly strong, where Feist oozes equal bits of pain and sensuality.
Simply put, she’s not so unfamiliar to scare off the mainstream and more than innovative enough to lure the discriminate. You get the sense that she can make a fan out of anyone. That’s the principle that will keep The Reminder and Feist in the forefront this year.
