Feist: ‘The Reminder’ review

By Headphoner

Rating: 7/10

Albums are like friends. Some stay with you till college graduation and lose touch after your first job. Some remain in the background as the third wheel on your first date, never complaining. Some stick it out with you through a rough patch, mostly joining your pity party. Some come with escapism in their arms, offering spontaneous adventures. Some only come by when the weather’s fair. Some never part with you even when you’re balding, menopaused, bedridden or all three at once.

Leslie Feist’s sophomore album The Reminder is none of the above. It is a friend whom you call a friend because of the polite smiles engaged through hallways, or the colleague who impresses you with her know-how, wit and sophistication—but whom you will forget outside of work or school. She appears close, but really isn’t.

The Reminder bears all the idiosyncrasies of a singer-songwriter record. You have the hushed/breathy songs (’The Park’, ‘So Sorry’, ‘The Limit to Your Love’), the faster ones for contrast (’1234′, ‘Past in Present’), and the stylish ones in between (’Honey Honey’). It remains accessible—suitable for parties, bedrooms and cafes—but doesn’t go anywhere outside of being that. If it were a landscape, it would be a little hill. People do not have difficulty climbing up hills. Hills are great for picnics, but won’t offer you much in a change of view.

Clumsy metaphors aside however, The Reminder is indeed a more solid offering than its predecessor Let it Die. There is the cheekiness of ‘My Moon My Man’, the lilt of ‘I Feel it All’ in the face of cumbrance, the textures on ‘How My Heart Behaves’, and the extreme contagion of ‘Sealion’. Arguably, the songs that work to Feist’s advantage are the faster, spryly numbers. ‘1234′ dances with a liveliness similar to 2004’s ‘Mushaboom’ (with the help of a banjo, no less), yet you get the sense that she knows what works, and is sticking to it. Even the scruffy vibrations from chord changes seem professionally appropriated for effect.

But the gravity of the lesser, milquetoast tracks such as ‘Intuition’, ‘Brandy Alexander’ and ‘The Water’ pull this album back from truly reaching its potential. The audibly intimate songs suffer from being half-n-half—somewhat personal, a quarter ambiguous and partly empty. Make no mistake, the woman can emote. It sounds almost breezy to hear her sing about how sorrow populates a city and leaves you homeless. But as the four-minute mark winds down, all that’s left is a clever juxtaposition of pitches from someone all too familiar with the uniqueness of her voice—the kind that is not dramatically arresting, yet sultry in its nuances. No one is insisting that Feist hurl herself into the microphone with a torrent of saliva, crash cymbals over amps or throw a grand piano down a building. There’s just a wonder if anything could be done differently—horns and harp notwithstanding. Next time, maybe.

FEIST - THE REMINDER
(Interscope)

Track Listing

1. So Sorry
2. I Feel It All
3. My Moon My Man
4. The Park
5. The Water
6. Sealion
7. Past in Present
8. The Limit to Your Love
9. 1234
10. Brandy Alexander
11. Intuition
12. Honey Honey
13. How My Heart Behaves