★★★☆
The princess of whimsy returns with a style adhering to the polish ofWhat We Saw From The Cheap Seats, while injecting a dose of her old wit and a new serve of direct emotional address.
Spektor is always at her best when embracing her weirdo Soviet kitsch, so when the piano kicks in for ‘Grand Hotel’, her familiar warmth and playfulness emerge like the embrace of a friend. She dives straight into dark-pop groove with the Grimes-style ‘Small Bill$’, amply supported by warped orchestrals.
The darker fare leaves Spektor emotionally exposed, particularly in the pained ‘Obsolete’ where she laments her “useless art”. Keyboard pedals get stomped in naked anger through ‘The Trapper And The Furrier’, and cautionary tales like ‘Sellers Of Flowers’ adequately cover for the tedium of more disposable ballads.
Her opulent orchestral arrangements give her melancholy a sense of the grand, more compelling for the sincerity of her writing. “‘Enjoy your youth’ sounds like a threat,” she opines in ‘Older And Taller’, “but I will anyway”.
Never mind the bleeding heart – Regina Spektor isn’t going anywhere, and Remember Us To Life brings new maturity to her mercurial style.
Regina Spektor’sRemember Us To Lifeis out now through Sire/Warner.
