Imogen
Heap: Speak for Yourself (RCA)
Imogen Heap has had an interesting past few years going from relative
obscurity with her 1998 debut I Megaphone to blowing up with
Frou Frou, her collaboration with past Madonna and Björk collaborator
Guy Sigsworth. Their 2002 album Details set the standard for
21st-century sophisticated pop with the breakout hit “Breathe In,”
and in 2004 Zach Braff helped guarantee that Frou Frou would endure by
picking album track “Let Go” for inclusion in his hit film
and smash soundtrack Garden State. Imogen now drops her first
solo album as all eyes are on her.
Speak For Yourself is a VH1-ready album full of pleasant sounds
and some interesting insights, but sadly fails to have the lasting impact
of some of the best songs from Frou Frou. The album itself is a major
achievement for Heap, who not only wrote and performed all the songs,
but also produced the album. The first song, “Headlock,” sets
the tone fantastically, with the slow burn of her breathy vocal building
to a boisterous synth beat explosion. “Goodnight and Go” is
a broadly confessional song about forbidden desire that seems peeled from
the shallow lit pages of a MySpace blog.
More successful is “Loose Ends,” a song about the breakup
of an “overrated” couple; Heap’s song structure and
production showcase intense passion. Another standout is the vocoder-drenched
“Hide and Seek,” which features Heap’s electrified voice
a cappella; the stark and unexpectedly powerful song shows that sometimes
all the bells and whistles in the world can’t beat a damn compelling
voice.
6 Blips out of 10 By Nick Hyman