"Tidal" is a debut album with so much soul and attitude that it hits like a lightning bolt. Fiona Apple's vocals and lyrics are a potent mixture, especially combined with a strong jazz and funk sound. Perhaps Apple says it best on the first track "Sleep to Dream": "So don't forget what I told you / don't come around / I got my own hell to raise." That's a threat worth taking to heart before diving into the next 10 tracks.
Apple designs a sultry musical backdrop of piano, vibraphone, bass, chamberlain and even harp. Honesty and emotion combine to make her vocals a raw force.
"Sullen Girl" is a beautiful ode to lost love and healing. These two themes weave their way throughout all of the tracks, coming across with a real punch in "Shadowboxer." The piano and Apple's smoky voice create a sexy jazz sound that parallels the emotion in the song. When Apple sings "your gaze is dangerous / If I let you get too close you'll set your spell on me," she leaves contemporary female plight crooners like Alanis Morrisette in the dust.
"Tidal" is refreshing because it mixes so many musical influences. Apple manages to bring together a jazz, pop and soul sound in just 10 tracks.
A trance-like R&B sound emerges in "The First Taste," in which Apple sings "Oh, your love give me a heart contusion / Your hungry flirt borders intrusion." The marimba and percussion add to the mood. Tracks such as this give Apple a mystical allure akin to the music of Sade.
Imagine a dark night club, smoky and filled with the lovelorn, as a backdrop for the entire album. A story of love and confession underlies each track, most poignantly heard on "Never is a Promise," a gorgeous vocal exploration of hidden emotions. "Tidal" hits with just the right combination of poetic lyrical emotion and perfect musical arrangements, drowning the listener in a tide both delicate and pulsating in its beauty.
- Shannon O'Neill
Soul and attitude make Apple's "Tidal."
Shawn Colvin's first album, including all new original material since 1992, is almost worth the wait. Though Colvin is increasingly moving away from the spare folksy arrangements that made up her still-excellent 1989 debut, "Steady On," she hasn't lost any style points.
"A Few Small Repairs" is full of engaging songs about real people. First-person romantic longings like "You and the Mona Lisa" never fall into cliches and contain some of the most intelligent lyric writing in today's pop music. The same can be said for Colvin's bitter side: "If I Were Brave" ends with the line "A thousand lonely lifetimes I still wait and then go on / a clown to entertain the happy couples." Even on the relatively bland "Nothin' On Me," a gritty triplet feel makes the song more than listenable. In a better world, it would be a huge hit.
Colvin takes plenty of musical risks too, more so than on either of her earlier albums. She is rapidly becoming the studio rat of female singer/songwriters. Her arrangements vary from raw and spontaneous-sounding ("Get Out of this House") to meticulous pop-rock ("You and the Mona Lisa") to subdued perfection ("If I Were Brave").
There is nothing on this disc as instantly appealing as "Round of Blues" from her last album, but "A Few Small Repairs" is very consistent in its message. Let's hope we don't have to wait four more years for her next one.
- Mark Feldman