Australian singer-songwriter, Missy Higgins finally returns with her third album five years after, her excellent sophomore release, On A Clear Night. Not much has changed here, which works to the album's credit. The album holds true to the heart-on-her-sleeve songwriting and tenderly emotional vocals that made her first two albums work so well, while largely delivering a similar piano and acoustic guitar backing. There is a slightly more evident jazz influence to tracks like the swaying cool of "Hello Hello", with Higgins sauntering gracefully through a stand-up bass groove and boppy piano jabs. The foreboding strings lightly poking through the beat-centric "Unashamed Desire" leads to a more steely-eyed vocal in the verses before the theatrically wailing hook.
Higgins' wonderfully fragile melodies sparkle in the string filled piano ballad "All In My Head", while the stomping acoustic strut of "Tricks" and hushed verses rolling into an uplifting, skyward hook on "Set Me On Fire" find her kicking up her heels for a more carefree pop sound. It is the careful balance of vulnerability and emotion in her vocals on dazzling country-tinged ballad "Everyone's Waiting" that makes Higgins such an fantastic artist. The back and forth between more assertive acoustic based tunes and delicate ballads is broken up with the odd "Temporary Love", sounding like a cross between disco and those corny mid-eighties movie theme songs. Fortunately, Higgins' vocals are too good to care how strangely out of character the track sounds. In the end, Higgins' latest is a diverse reminder of what an amazingly talented artist she is. Hopefully it is not another five years before she unveils her fourth album.
Seek - "Set Me On Fire", "Everyone's Waiting", "If I'm Honest"
For fans of - Lissie
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