New album reviews: Regina Spektor’s ‘Begin to Hope’ and ‘Far’

We recently got Regina Spektor’s Sire catalog on eMusic, so I reviewed her latest two records. It’s kinda funny, I finished these right before Memorial Day weekend, whereas last year I spent my Memorial Day weekend writing about her, but for a big story for Billboard. I’m pretty sure it was one of the more stressful weekends of my life, at least in terms of writing, and I’m glad that didn’t happen a second consecutive year.

My eMusic review of Begin To Hope:

2004′s Soviet Kitsch might have been Regina Spektor’s breakthrough, but Begin to Hope is the album that made her the face of quirky piano-pop; you’d be hard-pressed, in 2006, to find a heartbroken girl who wasn’t singing, “You are my sweetest downfall/ I loved you first.” Spektor’s songs are honest, mostly-innocent heartbreakers that are spiked with unexpected lines about cocaine (“Hotel Room”) and dudes wanting “to feel the bulges in their pants start to rise” (“Summer In The City”).

Musically, Begin to Hope is both grander and more stripped down than its predecessor: The ballads “Samson” and “Field Below” are accompanied by little more than Spektor’s piano; “Edit” and “Hotel Song” use drum-machine beats and synths; “On The Radio” has strings and handclaps. It’s all fronted by a playful, perfectly articulated mezzo-soprano that sometimes breaks out into “ah-ah-ahs,” beat-boxing or other vocal effects. Though not typically autobiographical, every Spektor song tells a story — but from the heartbreaking “Samson” and “Fidelity” to the defiant refrain of “Aprés Moi,” every story on Begin to Hope became an anthem.

My eMusic review of Far:

On far, Regina Spektor’s fifth LP and first since her mainstream breakthrough Begin to Hope, the pop songstress sets romance mostly aside and instead considers life in broader strokes. While it wouldn’t be a Spektor album without a couple of love songs, most of her stories here are about death, feeling lost and — more so than in the past — faith and religion. In “Laughing With,” she suggests that God is laughing at everyone; in the haunting “Human Of The Year,” which is set in a cathedral, she likens religious idols to everyday people, singing, “The icons are whispering to you/ They’re just old men/ Like on the benches in the park/ Except their balding spots are glistening with gold.”

More than anything, far is a mainstream pop album with no shortage of hooks: Tracks like “Eet” and “Laughing With” were made for commercial radio. Longtime Spektor fans, though, will likely gravitate most toward “Folding Chair,” in which Spektor does her best dolphin impression, and the synth-backed “Dance Anthem of the ’80s,” which starts with Spektor making cymbal noises and singing in unison alongside a simple piano line. The lyrics on far require a bit more deciphering than those on Spektor’s previous releases, but even if you have to dig a little deeper to find the meaning, her wit rewards the challenge: The best line in “Machine” is “Living in your pre-war apartment/ Soon to be your post-war apartment” and in the most literal number, “Wallet,” she sings about finding a man’s wallet and trying to track him down via his Blockbuster card.

The biggest change on far comes from behind the scenes: It’s Spektor’s first record since Sire leader Michael Goldstone left the label, and while she kept David Kahne on as a producer, she also added three more — Mike Elizondo (Eminem, Fiona Apple), ELO and Traveling Wilburys’ Jeff Lynne, and Garret “Jackknife” Lee (Snow Patrol, Bloc Party). It’s surprisingly hard to tell who worked on which track — they’re all slick, many with strings, occasional horns, random percussion and, of course, Spektor’s piano at the forefront — but it seems unnecessary to have so many people on board. Thankfully, far is still very much her own, and it doesn’t feel like the work has been compromised.