Metals by Feist

In my Best eleven of '11 post, I may have intimated that I did not think too highly of this album ("a little disappointed" were, I believe, my exact words).  Well, I feel a fool now because I am proper obsessed with it at the moment. 

I've been a Feist fan for years and listen to her first two albums, Let It Die and The Reminder, frequently.  I'm not entirely sure what it was I found lacking on Metals during my first listen, because now it seems to me a rich, satisfying and multi-layered collection of songs.  Opening track The Bad In Each Other combines crystalline vocals with handclaps and a sparse guitar track.  The highlight of the album, Graveyard, showcases her stunning voice before the addition of strings, a horn section and a backing track which sounds like a full-scale choir but is, I suspect, just Feist's own voice layered in production.  The stuttery delivery of How Come You Never Go There adds emphasis to her bleak lyrics of love and loneliness. 

While there is nothing on Metals as uplifting and delightful as breakthrough single Mushaboom  or worldwide hit 1234, it is a very beautiful album; bluesy, heartfelt and organic-sounding.