Regina Spektor - Home Before and After

by Zena Grieg

published: 31 / 7 / 2022

Label: Warner Bros
Format: CD

intro

Playful, unpredictable and sometimes heart-wrenching first album in six years from Moscow-born, but New York-based singer-songwriter Regina Spektor

Moscow-born, New York residing singer-songwriter Regina Spektor has released her eighth album, the first in six years. Co-produced with John Congleton, ‘Home, Before And After’ is less quirky than her previous records. Themes range from love and loss to a critique of power and misogyny, underlain by a reflective meditativeness in some songs, complemented by a mix of genres from ballads through a sprinkling of hip-hop to pop. Highlights of this ten-track collection include: the powerful, string-laden, drumbeat-driven lead single ‘Becoming All Alone’, an emotive track about loneliness counterpointed wittily by a chance encounter with God who takes her out for a beer: “And we didn’t even have to pay/’Cause God is God/and he’s revered”; the vibrant funk and uneasy urgency of ‘Up The Mountain’ seeking existential answers in the natural world; ‘Raindrops’ a delicate piano-led declaration of longing; the mesmerizing ‘SugarMan’ with its caustic lines: “I’m not your doll, I’m not your pet/But I’m not my own ever since we met”; the jazzy, nine-minute ‘Spacetime Fairytale’ musing about time, life and meaning:”Pages burn, but words return/Just watch the flames and you will learn”; the inventive and poetic ballad ‘Coin’ with its theatrical sound, about the contrasting outcomes of giving cash to a shaman, a scientist, a president and a baby who “swallowed it whole” and finally to a lover: “You smiled and said, “Oh, you shouldn’t have/But your eyes spoke louder than your mouth/Your eyes said thank you, your eyes said love”; and the closer the whimsical, satirical ‘Loveology’ with Spektor in the guise of a schoolteacher dealing in ‘ologies’, the plaintive final line resonating: “Forgive me-ology”. “I tend to live in a world of miniatures, so even my biggest work feels like a blink to me” Spektor said in an interview. Playful, unpredictable and sometimes heart-wrenching, ‘Home, Before And After’ is an experimental odyssey of musical moments, a shifting and impacting kaleidoscope of sound and emotion..

Track Listing:-

1 Becoming All Alone
2 Up the Mountain
3 One Man's Prayer
4 Raindrops
5 Sugarman
6 What Might Have Been
7 Spacetime Fairytale
8 Coin
9 Loveology
10 Through a Door

Band Links:-

https://reginaspektor.com/
https://www.facebook.com/reginaspektor
https://twitter.com/respektor

Label Links:-

http://www.warnerbrosrecords.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/warnerbrosrecordsuk/

Play in YouTube:-

Have a Listen:-

live reviews

Carling Academy, Birmingham, 5/9/2007

Unaware of the geography of Birmingham, guest reviewer Charles Howarth nearly gets lost in its city centre, but makes it to the Carling Academy in time to see Regina Spektor play an impressive set