Categories : Featured Review, Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 4/5 Released: October 4, 2005 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
Extraordinary Machine comes after a six-year hiatus for Fiona Apple. Anticipation of this album was high, fuelled by the kind of controversy that, in retrospect, will only fuel sales of the album. After her record label reportedly shelved the original version (inspiring an internet based “Free Fiona†campaign), Apple eventually re-recorded the album, and with that we get the masterpiece of her career.
Extraordinary Machine is a tight-rope walk between Fiona Apple’s trademark empowerment and a new sense of vulnerability, and Apple is at her best when she falls. During these moments of emotional fragility, we see an endearing side of Apple that was absent on her two previous albums. This balancing act is most notable on Parting Gift, where she begins with the vitriol (“Oh you silly, stupid pastime of mineâ€) but ends with the first sense that she’s sharing the blame (“The signs said stop / but we went on whole-hearted / It ended bad / but I love where we startedâ€).
Don’t be fooled, though – Apple isn’t all shrugs and apologies on Machine. The cocksure songstress attacks on the biting Get Him Back, which plays between the notion of revenge and recovered love: “You will see my face as I figure how to kill what I cannot catch.â€
The obvious story upon the release of this album was the long wait and legal battles that preceded it, but Machine shows a confident Apple focusing the spotlight solely on her music, and the result is a newfound maturity and musical personality that stands up just as strongly as the singer herself.
