Siobhan Parr - 'Repeat To Fade' (IRL)
2/5
By: Kevin Molloy
Another young star pushed into the limelight and asked to smile. How many more like Joss Stone can our nation stand? Yes, she has an incredible voice. And might indeed, somewhere, have some artistic integrity to boot. But the major selling-point again and again seems to be how old she sounds whilst so young, how knowledgeable at an age of innocence; this is beginning to register as a form of perversion.
So the easy definition? This is the countrified Joss Stone. The viewpoint has a certain amount of merit; she's 19 years young, she's got a huge voice, and the album will rock you to sleep with an inconsequential boredom. Up to here we'd have no problem in panning this LP, but there's something lurking beneath that turns our ears. There comes a moment in which her voice swings into the purity of tone of Joni Mitchell; your soul is suddenly awash; you hear a beauty unparalleled in the other young 'artistes' of our time. It's truly a crying shame, a melancholy sadness, and another country cliché of regret, that this wondrous voice has to be subverted to fit a scheme. The twang certainly hasn't originated from her London upbringing and nor does it feel, as far too many a lazy journalist has proclaimed, like some form of strong liquor in a southern state of America. It feels falsified, and it masks the real quality.
Exactly the same criticism can be brought to bear upon the production, and that's where 'Repeat To Fade' suffers the most, becoming 'Curtail After A Minute'. The album sounds like any other from the Nashville production line. Yet we mustn't blame too much on an intangible machine. All of these songs were written by the girl herself, and whilst some of them are rather good (save presentation), songs like 'When The Night' and 'Any Other Way' are blandness with a small 'b' in a very normal font. Still, to highlight the amount of negative industry influence involved here, take her online biography: 'Siobhan's rock chick credentials are impeccable... she's partied with... Mark Owen formerly of Take That.'
It's when Parr lets loose with her own influences, and plays in the manner in which she composes that this album find its feet. Unfortunately this is in the very last track, a cover of Tim Buckley's 'Buzzin' Fly'. It's telling that her rendition is truly emotive, and surprisingly redemptory. And the reason isn't because it's a cover of a better songwriter - it's because, finally, it's just Parr and a guitar, and finally the album gains a song that's heartfelt, a glimmer of hope kindled for someone whose talent is truly admirable, and simply rather diluted in this venture.
We're sure that her voice and structured songs would more than redeem themselves live, or on a more open LP. But 'Repeat To Fade' is an unnecessary stopgap, a set of songs that could have been emotive but made ordinary by a thick mask of production, and a superb young voice pushed far too hard into sounding 'old beyond her years'. Here's to hoping this poor showing is simply an indictment of the industry, for a voice as strong vocally and lyrically as Parr's should not be suffered to be lost so easily as this.
Artists in this article: Siobhan Parr
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