Rating: NNN
Some critics will accuse Kinnie Starr of selling out for dropping her hip-hop influences and out-there artsy tendencies in favour of relatively straightforward pop songs about love, but we’re willing to accept that this is just where she’s at right now. To her credit, she still manages to cover a lot of musical ground within this concept, and her sometimes quirky sensibilities haven’t been stripped of their charm in this more conservative context.
[rssbreak]
It’s all quite pleasant, but that’s the problem. Whether she dresses the tunes up with electronic embellishments or strips them down to acoustic guitar, they still sound like variations on the same wistful mid-tempo ballad. The only moment that breaks out of this haze comes when she rocks out a bit on the title track, which has real potential as a single.
Top track: A Different Day
Kinnie Starr plays the Rivoli Saturday (March 6).
