Feist: Metals

[Polydor; 2011]
7.5/10 dropps

As a brairding artist, Leslie Feist, sprouted as a dainty puppeteer, emulated Mitchell-and-Baez musicology, pedaled in Broken Social Scene, and was picked (she loves me, she loves me not) for four Grammy nominations in light of her 2007 supernova, The Reminder. Before she got her big break, her debut, Monarch (Lay Your Jeweled Head Down) only reached valiant-effort status, while her soulful Let it Die trinket quickly gain her bids as a prized item. As time and energy billowed, collaborations with tycoons such as: Ben Gibbard via “Train Song”, Wilco via “You and I”, Grizzly Bear via “Service Bell”, and Kyle Field via “Look At What the Light Did Now” solidified Feist as a taut commodity and a troubadour with contemporary acuity. However, her self-employed selectivity came at no small cost, as writer’s block slowly set in and a blown-out-spark for new material gyrated her into a one-year, musicless hiatus planting tomatoes and finding leisure in France, Mexico City and Egypt.

“One Two Three Four” or even five seasons later, tracks like “A Commotion” gave way to a primal impetus, cracked the creative curtains, and metabolized her Muse after a dormant hibernation, offering us the wide-eyed, untarnished bellow, Metals [Polydor]. Mocky and Gonzales – two of Feist’s go-to musical minds – plus Vanessa Carlton, Marina and the Diamonds, and Beck’s keyboardist, Brian LeBarton, all gripped the blowtorch to heat, cut and weld together each of the twelve pieces of metal that comprise the “Graveyard”-rich album. While elaborating to David Greene on NPR’s Morning Edition, Feist explains a leitmotif of the title, Metals, is mutability as, “Metals can be found unforged and raw, and molten in the center of the earth. But they can also be highly refined and turned into little tiny jewelry.” The literal and figurative pathos of her statements can be felt in her first single, “How Come You Never Go There,” and the entirety of the album, as the Feist-factors stay true to themselves: raw enough to not be over-produced, dynamic at the core, scorched by angst, and articulated by swooping vocals.

Elated by the natural world, in the “Past and Present”, Feist has embraced the theatrical experience of thunderstorms, cascaded “Bittersweet Melodies”, spoken of the serenades of “Cicadas and Gulls”, and pioneered the “Anti-Pioneer.” The evolutionary course from The Reminder to Metals appears as if Feist consciously chose “Honey, Honey” – from former – as a bumblebee to cross-pollinate her golden soul and black-slated entendre – to latter.  In the Fall of 2011, Leslie Feist’s voice – her impeccable instrument of choice – continues to permeate the foreground, her cutesy underbelly has become less exposed, and her gardened sentiments still emit a potent aroma. Whether she is assuming the role(s) of goldsmith, silversmith, blacksmith, whitesmith, Metalsmith, or flat out tunesmith, Leslie Feist has, once again, kilned her red-hot name and branded the big beast.

-Zach Frimmel