The Overdone and the Underwhelmed

I truly hope that this is Sarah Blasko's 'difficult' third album because golly gosh does it sound laboured. I hate writing this, even now, my fingers are fighting against my heart, struggling to write such words about my one true love. I had always believed that one fine day in the not so distant future, Miss Blasko was going to be my sweetheart, we were going to meet and fall in love, buy a house in the suburbs and get a dog and before too long have little Blaskos running around our white picket fence. And yes of course I'd let her keep her own name, because it would be a travesty to sacrifice such a wicked (and marketable) surname. Am I legally able to take her name? Would my Dad care? Anyway I am rambling and this information is neither here nor there, nor anywhere for that matter.

Apart from my utter infatuation with her beauty, the point is or should be that Sarah has kinda dropped the ball on her latest album, As Day Follows Night. Writing this album by herself for the first time after breaking up with her long time writing/love-making partner; you would expect that it would be filled with beautifully melancholy Blaskoness (Blaskoality?) as she expresses the pain of her recent break up. But no. Instead there is painfully repetitive lyrics and mundane same-same arrangements. I hear you blogreaders! "Say It Ain't So!"



Alas it seems that Sarah has hit the creative doldrums, gone are the lush, experimental, sweeping musicianship that made songs such as {Explain}, Perfect Now and The Albatross so haunting and interesting. In are the sleepy and frustrating repetitious Is My Baby Yours? Where the title is pondered by Sarah no less than 17 times in 3 and a half minutes and the equally draining, Night & Day where its respective title is asserted 14 times in a similar timeframe.

This obvious lull in lyrical vigour is not helped by a grating monotone from the damsel herself that drowns out the entire album. Where in the past the epic and complex nature of her music has made up for her lack of vocal range and intonation, the minimalism employed on this latest outing by guest producer Bjorn Yttling (of Peter, Bjorn and John fame) does her no favours, bringing her singular octave vocals to the forefront of the songs, only highlighting what has always been her biggest weakness as an artist.

However, such production faux-pas and unintelligent pseudo-wisdom sprouting forth from Miss Blasko's mouth has not stopped a torrent of accolades and critically rapturous reviews for the album, most of which are from commercial media outlets desperate to catch up with the Blasko-Band-Wagon, one i feel is in desperate need of a service and some time off the road.

Therefore Sarah's record company, Dew Process, should not be worried. The album will still sell quite well and will most likely receive wider press than any other release to date. This is mostly due to the fact that three albums in, Sarah is at the point in her career where she has created enough buzz with the indie scenesters and adult contemporary aficionados that the wider music community either needs to ignore her completely or heap praise upon her, whether it is timely or warranted. Unfortunately this album gives no such evidence for either, and I am sure I am not the only fan (or worshiper) who are struggling to find something to love.

This desire to find something lovable that just isn't there is not helped by Sarah's drastic change in image that has accompanied the new album launch. We all knew she was a bit of an odd-ball but sadly the elegant, Audrey Hepburn styled gowns and dresses that back-in-the-day were the envy of every 20 something woman in the room and the reason for the starry eyes in every 20 something year old man have been replaced by odd and unflattering costume designs that resemble the Mad Hatter on acid. Sarah needs to learn that only one woman can get away with such eccentricities, and her name is Bjork, and it only because she wrote an aural piece of heaven called Hyperballad.



To be fair, Bird on a Wire provides a glimmer of the good ole days, it is the sole song on the album that twists its melody, (magnificently utilising a brooding bass line)and uses an ounce of originality and narrative it is lyrics. Though even the relative, and i stress relative glory of this track is marred by its crucial line, "Caught in a trap of desire, you got lost, you got shot with a bow and arrow to the heart, you're flashing your life like a battered wife, got some wood and a knife, wood and a knife." Just another example of how lazy repetition allows a song fall into mediocrity after building so intensely and beautifully.

I was hoping this album was to be Sarah's Wuthering Heights, it wasn't. I was then hoping it would be 'a grower', it wasn't. I can now only hope it is a minor glitch in an otherwise stellar career. If Sarah needs to be in love to write her best material, consider my hand well and truly in the air (and i know a nice tapas restaurant), with my motivations lying somewhere between my own personal fantasy and having the best interests of the Australian music industry at heart. Sarah i shall always love you, i just want you to know that for now, I'm not angry, I'm just dissapointed. But isn't that always worse?

P.S - For evidence of aforementioned acid use, check out the film clip for Bird on a Wire.