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Heather Nova is a blend of contrasts. Raised in the Caribbean, schooled in the U.S., and currently based in London, England, her music, too, contains a variety of flavors, from Celtic vocal stylings to percussive guitar to hard-driving folk-pop. This woman can alternately rock out or slip right into a gentle ballad. Without a doubt, she's talented, but her albums always seem to be a bit uneven. Siren, her fourth release, is no different in that respect. It contains several brilliant tracks, some solid efforts, and a few that are a bit too precious for me to stomach.
While Nova's soprano vocals are expressive, I'm not a fan of either over-emoting shrieks or of speak-singing unless absolutely necessary to bring across the point of a song. Unfortunately, on Siren she often wanders into bad Tori Amos territory, using glass-shattering vocal swoops again and again to convey emotion, when straightforward singing would have been just as effective.
To Nova's credit, she paints vivid lyrical images with only a few strokes, and encompasses a wide range of subjects in her songwriting, from springtime ("Winterblue") to abusive relationships ("I Survived") to the joy of coming home to a lover after being away ("London Rain"). From the brooding, stormy "Blood of Me" to the tender "Paper Cup" (the line "I'm always drawn to the darkest horse" could sum up the romantic history of just about anyone) listeners are taken on a dynamic journey of sound. Themes that seem to run through Nova's work are those of healing and renewal, and tracks like "What A Feeling" ("Life is only halfway in our hands/Years have passed while I was making plans ... What a feeling/The laughter that was dead is coming") convey this wisdom. Overall, a spirited effort from a gifted artist.
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