The House

Three years of waiting for Melua's new studio work

She is loved and welcomed in each and every corner of the globe. The extravagant singer Katie Melua is stunning with her behavior, enchanting with her beauty and delights with her music. After all, her popularity is steadily growing while Katie, in her own turn, is trying hard to enhance her professional skills, which she is doing greatly if you compare the records she had delivered so far. Piece By Piece (2005), and Pictures (2007) were practically flawless and sold in tremendous numbers. There wa sonly one tendency that did not seem very pleasant. Preparations of each new album took more time than those of the previous one. The singer’s followers waited for three years to see their favorite release her fourth full-length effort, The House. Within those three years, the singer parted her ways with the producer of her first three albums, Michael Batt, and teamed up with William Orbit. The consequence is that Melua’s freshly released record is in some terms not like what she has delivered before, yet these differences are not radical enough to let us speak about a completechange of song-writing and performing approach.

The House is more contemporary, variegated and depressive than the other albums

Producer William Orbit has worked on making the sound of Katie Melua’s new album more contemporary. The House bears a stronger influence of electronic music. There are moments when its presence is far too noticeable, like in the track A Happy Place, a piece that may confuse those who expected a sort of material in the vein of Melua’s earlier efforts. They are likely to feel for Red Balloons. Generally, The House has the darkest mood and hardest lyrics Katie has ever offered on her records. The very first composition, I’d Love To Kill You, prepared the listener for a certain type of impact. This is a ballad with weird lyrics about weird love that at first sight looks completely unsuitable for the album’s opener position. But the effect of the unexpected beginning works very well. There is even more mystique and enigma in No Fear Of Heights with the tension that is boosted up by strings and Katie’s vocal manner that seems more like whispering rather than singing. Besides, one should pay all the attention to the single The Flood that kicks off moderately and then builds up to an explosive dance piece. Sad to say, the second half of The House is not on par with the first one. Katie Melua decided to bomb the audience with most interesting stuff right from the start and stored the more expectable material for the later listening.

Katie Melua decides on her music herself

Changing of producers did have an influence on the exterior of the musical material, yet it hardly impacted the content that is still Katie Melua’s sole responsibility. From release to release, the singer is accumulating experience and maturity while her star status gives her freedom from labels. That is why the core of The House is again blues, the blues that we heard from Melua in the past. Only new thing is that this time it sounds less old-fashioned So far, the singer is reluctant and pretty unconfident to try experiments with her style. Her efforts aimed for that purpose (reflected in the song God On The Drums, Devil On The Bass) are not inspiring or courageous for the largest part of her audience. In any case, we must keep that in mind that Melua is only twenty five, yet she is already responsible for the selection of the music style she is performing. Overall, there are not so many musicians of that age found in the world who have delivered several powerful records and have already developed their own song-writing rules and manner of performance. This will be interesting to watch the progress of the talented Katie Melua’s career.