Consequently, Thorn sounds as in-her-element and comfortable as ever. She s always been a singular talent in the pop music world, with her overall approach, as well as her singing voice. Cool and laconic where others can t resist being shrill and overdone, she s the anti-diva.
And in using electronic music as a backdrop for a range of real emotions rather than a look at me now! stab at continued relevance, she s the anti-Kylie, too. From EBTG s first original single, Each and Every One , she s always conveyed a subtle, yet unmistakable, feminism by simply being a woman and being honest about it a much more effective approach than the sex-tease posturing Sheryl Crow, Liz Phair, and others have resorted to.
Nowhere on Out of the Woods is that more evident than on her cover of 80s NYC non-conformist composer Arthur Russell s Get Around To It . Show me what the girl does / To the boy / If you can get around to it , Thorn sings in her seductively offhand manner, as Pearson s funky, quirky, Afro-beat-influenced production recalls prime Talking Heads. For longtime Thorn fans, the song is doubly fun because it presents her in a new context a bit goofy, playful, and overtly sexual.
If only more of Out of the Woods found Thorn stepping outside herself like that. Although there s nothing wrong with the chunky hip-hop beats of the otherwise downcast A-Z and Easy , or the thumping electro-pop of the winning single It s All True , they re hardly surprising, and risk becoming dated by the current trend toward 80s-leaning analog synth squeals. The slowed-down vintage Chicago house groove of Falling Off a Log , though, is another high point.
Watt handled most of the arranging for EBTG, and the meandering, quasi-demo feeling of ballads Here It Comes Again and By Piccadilly Station I Sat Down and Wept shows Pearson doesn t quite have the touch with softer material. The only real misfires, however, are Grand Canyon (which is meant to be a tribute to Watt s clean Buzzin Fly sound but falls a bit flat) and the tepid Raise the Roof , which sounds disturbingly like MOR, adult-alternative-pandering phase Annie Lennox. Throughout, Thorn does explore the upper range of her voice, usually with great success, although the preponderance of phasing effects is unnecessary at best.
Recently, James Poniewozik authored a column called Too Cool for Preschool in Time magazine in which he expressed bemusement at the current generation of hipster parents who can t quite believe they ended up doing something as square as raising a kid . On Out of the Woods, Thorn seems to see herself as one of these, and sometimes it s tough to sympathize. What happened to me?
she asks on Nowhere Near , before answering herself: I turned into someone s mother / Really someone should give me a uniform . On Raise the Roof , she laments, All those years I wasted / Sitting on my own / Why did I wait? .
She s not the first veteran musician who s had a tough time coming to grips with domestic life (Lindsey Buckingham s recent Under the Skin comes to mind) and the way it can affect one s love life. Leave someone else to do the suffering soccer mom thing Thorn is much more appealing on Get Around to It or the self-penned It s All True , asserting (presumably to Watt), Go away / Round the world / Talk to all kinds of girls / But it s me you won t find / And you re mine . Anyway, Out of the Woods proves that motherhood and making cool, credible, contemporary music aren t mutually exclusive.
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