Released 22/06/09, Sire Records



Regina Spektor’s fifth studio album ticks all the boxes in terms of the sunny disposition you would hope to fill your summer hours with.


It’s been a three year wait since Begin to Hope and this is pretty much where its predecessor left off. Far’s opener, “The Calculation”, is suitably cutesy and its infectious chorus and toe tapping ivory tickling would have no doubt fitted perfectly on 2006’s LP. As with each release they are riddled with the usual outré touches – here beat boxing and dolphin noises feature!


Regina is obviously keen to show that while some of her lyrics are arguably maturing: illustrated more so on “Laughing With” and “Genius Next Door”, she still hasn’t lost the almost magical realism of her song writing, nor the childish sensibilities that drew us to her from the outset.  Her delightfully simplistic philosophy on life makes tracks like “Folding Chair” just down-right feel good, as our Moscow born, Brooklyn bred songstress finds a place and purpose for everything – anyone who thought eyelashes were merely an aesthetic to bat at the boys needs to think outside the box!!!


“Eet” on the other hand makes us question what it is we are escaping as we use headphones to drown out our minds, if only, in this instance, to replace them with the wonderings of the ever insightful mind of Ms Spektor. While this is not her greatest effort: it’s certainly not as vocally outrageous as Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories, the fine art of story telling is retained and woven throughout. Adept at spinning yarns from the story of a misplaced wallet (“Wallet”) to a condensed few thousand years of Christian birth with Adam and Eve start[ing] beneath the knowledge tree before becom[ing] enslaved in the assembly lines as the global industrial movement pushes forth (“Blue Lips”), Far proves her song writing to be notches above the rest of the pop genre she often seems to fall under.


Die-hard fans will certainly find much of the album appealing and where in some cases the music doesn’t stand out as innovatively as on other recordings; the lyrics seem to stand for themselves. Likewise new fans looking to digest her back catalogue may be pleased to find this album more commercial and graspable whilst still retaining glimmers of the originality of her earlier works.

Posted In Album Reviews, Jul 07 2009. Words - Melanie