nerina pallot: fires

The silver-tongued Miss Pallot (as in mallow) sure is dicing with those titular flames on this, her second album and first since 2001’s precocious Dear Frustrated Superstar. As a collection of songs, Fires warms and cools the soul in equal measures, as her sweet soaring vocals and clear, crisp harmonies sometimes sour on bitter lyrical content. Like an assortment of chocolates missing its label, while most songs are colourfully packaged enough to please the aesthetic palette, some are just average and others may leave a slightly bitter aftertaste.

First single, ‘Everybody’s Gone To War’, is the most obvious talking point of the album. Musically, it’s a rather mixed bag, drawing on influences falling squarely under the pop/rock umbrella, yet raining down with the folk-like sentiments of a protest song. However honourable her intention, you can’t help feeling that her desire to cast religious and political aspersions within a high-class pop framework merely complicates and detracts from her message. Pop with a conscience has always been a risky business, with its clear winners (Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Where Is The Love?’) and losers (see Jewel’s entire 0304 album), and in this setting Pallot’s ‘controversial’ lyrics seem only twee and a shade condescending.

Elsewhere, the road to ‘Damascus’ is a labour of uncertainty. As a midtempo spiral of conversion to atheism, it’s surprisingly meaty and goes for the jugular, highlighting the hypocrisy in believing in something for the sake of it alone. In the past, Pallot has never been shy of using the odd expletive, and this one may well be slapped with a parental advisory. The derivative but fun ‘Geek Love’ could have been lifted from any US teen TV drama soundtrack. Its awkward chording and pensive reflection marks it out for the moment of first carnal fumblings, but just as those visuals would be censored to fit the PG13 watershed, the song leaves you wanting. The more impressive ‘Heart Attack’ has a gleefully oozing bassline, integral to the song’s structure that is designed to reflect the nature of an infarction — the chorus cuts through the regular pulse of the verse as a shuddering arrhythmia complete with vocals that constrict then heighten and finally explode. This and the ethereal closer, ‘Nickindia’, pick out Nerina as a determined femme fatale.

Overall, while Fires is intended as a light to guide through various directions, forks and U-turns, as with all journeys, there are points you might like to dwell on a little longer and a few that are better bypassed altogether.

[Idaho; April 24, 2005]

Written by: Andrew Stewart

Tags: fires, nerina pallot

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 at 4:14 pm and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.