Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3/5 Released: September 18, 2007 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
For KT Tunstall, the road to success has been longer than she was likely hoping for. By no means an overnight success, she has sat back over the last three years as her debut studio release Eye to the Telescope slowly but surely obtained wide spread international success. Now, for her highly anticipated sophomore release Drastic Fantastic, Tuntsall has taken a few steps away from the folk styling of Telescope to a much more pop oriented sound for much of the record.
The opening two tracks ‘Little Favours’ and ‘If Only’ set the infectious pop tone early, while over time, the progression of the album does eventually lead back to a style more reminiscent of her earlier work. Leading off a trio of such tracks that bring Drastic Fantastic to a close, is the albums finest track, ‘Beauty of Uncertainty.’ Starting off as a quiet acoustic number, it comes across as one of the albums rawest tracks as Tunstall sings hushed lyrics over the squeak of the guitar strings, but it does quickly pick up pace towards the end of the song, building its way up to a comparatively grandiose conclusion.
Clearly geared more towards being a quick commercial success, Drastic Fantastic exhibits signs of a changing KT Tunstall, but most important is that none of the attributes that that have made her music so attractive, namely her strong vocal presence and musical and lyrical craftsmanship, are lacking on this record. Tunstall tells that “my bar has been raised – I’ve realized what’s possible…and how we can actually make it better.†It’s this artistic growth that has allowed her too, quite successfully, create an air of pop appeal without undermining the individuality of her musical style.
