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10:
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timeless/perfect
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9 to 9.9:
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significant past 10 years
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8 to 8.9:
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significant past 5 years
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7 to 7.9:
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memorable
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6 to 6.9:
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standard playlife
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5 to 5.9:
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good for now
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4 to 4.9:
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will get a few playthroughs
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3 to 3.9:
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won't intentionally listen to this
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2 to 2.9:
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strongly avoid it
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1 to 1.9:
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no reason to ever listen to this
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0.1 to 0.9:
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rage-inducing
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0:
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no merit whatsoever.
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 Regina Spektor
"Far" (CD)
released in 2009
Label: Sire
http://www.myspace.com/reginaspektor
Regina Spektor once said in an interview that she had hundreds of songs ready to go, whether sitting in her head or written somewhere on paper. That she might have been exaggerating can be taken into account, especially when it's been three years since Begin to Hope, which itself came three years after Soviet Kitsch first came out.
But let's grant Spektor the mantle of "prolific" when it comes to her songwriting. The next task is to pick the right songs for each album, to from that vast library cull a veritable collection of cohesive tunes for a coherent album. And maybe that's why it takes three years to get us to Far.
Is this coherent? Musically, yes. The production goes up another notch, and the songs sparkle. On tracks like "Calculation" and "Folding Chair," Spektor's piano playing is peppier than ever. "Blue Lines" has sonic blasts that sound like fireworks unfurling, and "Two Birds" weaves in and out of Spektor's piano playing perfectly.
As for the songs themselves, at first they don't seem to fit too well together. The end of the album has a ponderous string of slower, moodier songs, the beginning works in fits and random collisions, and at some point you wonder if Spektor picked these songs with care or just out of a hat. You notice what's missing: no dramatic love ballad like "Samson," no heart-wrenching narrative like "Chemo Limo", no social-laced taunt like "Poor Little Rich Boy." No purpose.
Further listening reveals a few lyrical themes that tie the album together in a more consistent way than before for Spektor. There's a thread about religion and faith, with Spektor siding more towards the latter (as on "Laughing With"), but even then leaving the questions unanswered, as on "Blue Lines" or the affecting closer "Man with a Thousand Faces."
Even more than that, there's a thread of quiet humanism amidst the increasingly alienating (sure, toss this off as lame cultural theorizing of a pretentious young grad, but you try to feel comfortable in Spektor's NYC, where every mofo from the Brooklynite actress wannabes to the charged I-bankers are plugged into an I-Phone or a Blackberry and can't trade any personal connection without distraction, except a lame Michael Jackson anecdote or three) modern world. Whether it's the poor soul who can't shut things out anymore and can't even remember the song she used to shut things out before on the dramatic piano power ballad "Eet" or the cynical observer who longs to be touched on "Dance Anthem of the 80s," the people Regina writes about and inhabits are seeking connections or ways around those connections. The lyrics don't provide the answers as to whether they'll make the connections, and while the music surrounding them is crisp and bright, so to speak, it's also for the most part tinted and shaded in dark tones. So the hope we began to have before seems far away.
All the same, the record is not yet the magnum opus Spektor perennially seems capable of (and has come close to delivering earlier in her career). That album cohesion comes only with some digging, and there are questions of pacing and length that keep things from moving as well as they might. It's a good record, but not the one we've been waiting for. Spektor needs to go back to the collection and pick out a few more winners, it seems. Or write new ones, perhaps.
-30-
Review written on 2009/07/03 by Dan Shvartsman
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