Artist: Ingrid Michaelson
Album: Human Again
Release Date: Jan. 24
Label: Cabin 24 Records
Grade: C+
When Ingrid Michaelson appeared on the mainstream music radar with her 2007 single "The Way I Am," many fell in love with her sweet lyrics that oozed naïveté and her quirky yet chilling vocals. In Michaelson's fifth studio album, Human Again, these elements are noticeably absent, with a few affecting exceptions.
The album lacks stylistic coherence, a weakness that is evident from the first songs.Human Again opens with "Fire," which, at the outset, sounds like a promising pop/classical crossover, but quickly turns into a strange and unsettling combination of Vanessa Carlton circa 2002 and Journey's 1983 single "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)."
Immediately following is the echoing, breathy "This Is War," the sound of which could also be associated with numerous mediocre songs of years past. The point is, however, that the album sets the tone for such mediocrity from the start and fails to show original style – a skill Michaelson undoubtedly possesses but does not employ.
"I'll always know you were the one/ to rip me from the ground/ it's all because of you that I'm through," sings Michaelson on "I'm Through," the fourth track and vocal high note of the album.
Showing incredible vocal range and her adeptness at conveying true emotion through a narrative ballad, Michaelson uses "I'm Through" to give a unique account of love lost.
The eighth track on the album, "How We Love," is the first glimpse of Michaelson's lighthearted musicality shrouding weightier themes – precisely the type of musical irony that made her so loveable in the first place. Just a guitar and some distant horns accompany Michaelson's haunting voice, the composition of which has the ability to draw the listener away from reality and into the song.
The latter half of the album is puzzling. Jumping from quasi-ballads, to heavily-drummed quasi-anthems, Michaelson loses touch with any tangible tone set forth by the rest of the album. While Human Again gives some repeatable gems, the album lacks cohesion and the style that made Michaelson a commercial success.
Email: arts@ubspectrum.com
