Danielle Spencer: Calling All Magicians
Danielle Spencer: Calling All Magicians
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Monday, 15, Feb 2010 11:07
Danielle Spencer Music, out now.
What's it all about?
If the album title and gothic album cover artwork led you to expect an awful lot of mythological imagery and shrill singing in the style of Kate Bush - well, you'd be right. The 13 tracks of weird and whimsical witchery are rescued from potential obscurity by fantastic tunes, a unique vocal performance, and Tony Visconti's classic production.
Who's it by?
Danielle Spencer is known mostly for being married to Russell Crowe, but musically she is most akin to an Australian, blonde, and slightly less interesting version of Tori Amos. Despite the (not inconsiderable) temptation to throw her into the barrel of post-Aussie soapstars-turned-singers (she used to be on Home and Away), Calling All Magicians - her strangely belated follow-up to 2001's White Monkey - is actually not half bad. Oh, and it's produced by Tony Visconti, who - as if you didn't know - worked with David Bowie, Morrissey, T-Rex, Iggy Pop, Thin Lizzy... well, everyone, really.
As an example.
"Sitting on a bomb and it'll blow me away/If I ever had to give a damn." - The Broken One
"Like a guilty secret/That's been kept too long/Seems I've given you the right/To make everything wrong." - Citizen
"I wish I'd been on time/I've been chasing moments all of my life/And I know it's a crime/Just look at you and all that we have." - I Wish I'd Been There
What the others say
"Too beautiful for words." - Neil Finn
"A kind of cross between Kate Bush and David Bowie." - Tony Visconti
"Strip away the effects and the songs are left wanting. And they certainly aren't helped by Spencer's talky vocals." - Alison Grinter, TNT magazine.
So is it any good?
It's an unusual approach for an artist who is, in many ways, so firmly grounded in the commercial with her sound, to make a concept album full of strange mythological stories and fairytale imagery. Riskier still when her first album was minor enough, and long enough ago, to have been all but forgotten by now. Is it a courageous move, or a stupid one?
Well, Tony Visconti, Neil Finn and others have both already praised her to the skies, so does it really matter what I think anyway? The association with big names immediately knocks up a few much-needed credibility points (soapstars married to famous actors don't exactly have a history of heavyweight follow-up musical careers), but it seems that somebody, somewhere, didn't think it was enough, because the constant multi-layering of contradictory sounds on every track sounds an awful lot like over-keenness to demonstrate as much musical complexity as possible. Owing at least in part to Visconti's peerless production, however, it comes off reasonably well - although you still can't help but feel like you've overdosed on harmonies by the time you're about halfway through the album.
On Your Side seems to be the critics' unanimous favourite so far, but while this well-chosen lead off single is undeniably lovely, to hail it as the "album's clear gem" does Spencer a pretty big disservice. Far more engaging is when the raggedy-riff piano of The Broken Ones plunges suddenly into the album's richest hook, or when the delicious bridge to Ghost kicks into its great big chorus. And possibly most engaging of all is when Spencer strips down the fancy-pants witchery and lets the glorious melodies work a much simpler magic of their own on Wish I'd Been There.
Spencer does try a proper dip in the deep end with Citizen - which is not entirely a mistake; it shows she has plenty of room to grow, but also that she's capable of doing so. And when she sticks to the shallow end, with her textured voice adding purpose to otherwise dangerously predictable - yet still very pretty - ballads (Around the Corner, Man into Wolf and Empty Shoes) she cheerfully slaps almost anyone else in the genre right out of the pool. Indeed, End of Story settles itself nicely at the end of the album in true mellow pop ballad style, with its tick-tock drum beat, and chorus fit for full scale arm-waving, hairbrush singing, and fist-pounding. The 'do-do-do' background vocals sit a bit uncomfortably but then the whole song is sweet rather than great - and takes great delight in being so.
Back at the Red Door is perhaps the most ambitious track on the album, and shouldn't be dismissed too abruptly for only just missing the mark; like the splendid The Broken Ones, it is really only spoiled by the random spoken passages (of the Grand of Duke of York, no less... ) over the music.
In fact, ambitious is exactly what Calling All Magicians is. Danielle Spencer proves with her giant choruses she could have probably shifted truckloads of albums writing great hooks for power ballads - but that's not the album, it would seem, Danielle Spencer wanted to make. But where, exactly, the result will sit with the record-buying public, is uncertain. Too full of fantastical quirks to satisfy pure pop fans, yet not quite sophisticated enough to be a fair contender for any serious comparisons with its closest contemporaries, Regina Spektor or Tori Amos, it is most likely to be consigned to a significant minority of listeners who are willing to accept it for what it is; listeners who are genuine lovers of melody, and enjoy innocent whimsical oddities. One thing is certain, however. Spencer could made a much less inventive album, had she wanted to, and it would have paradoxically given her a better guarantee of success. It's surely impressive in itself that she chose to make a decent, challenging record, instead of a successful, fabulous-within-its-field-and-loved-by-everyone-for-two-months-then-forgotten, boring one. It's not exactly clear where Spencer's comfort zone is - but she seems determined to keep reaching beyond it.
8/10
Louise McCudden