"Natalie Imbruglia White Lilies Island (RCA)"
2002
Natalie Imbruglia has identity issues. A former star of the Australian
soap opera Neighbors and an overnight success in America with her
1998 radio hit "Torn," the singer-songwriter has returned
with a second album that is thoroughly catchy, utterly hummable
and impossible to fault except for its lack of any stamp of authorship.
Who is this Natalie Imbruglia, really? On the winsome "Wrong
Impression," she and her band pull off an uncanny impersonation
of the light tea time Anglo-pop of the Sundays, but it may be that
Imbruglia just happens to sound a lot like that band's singer, Harriet
Wheeler. The rainy-day arrangement and orchestration of "Goodbye"
is dreamy and vaguely sad, like the downbeat musings of an otherwise
pretty comfortable angel, although the songwriter may have intended
the tune as an exhibit of soul-baring, raw introspection. Imbruglia's
delicate, sweet and well-behaved singing isn't the ideal vehicle
for expressing angst, even if most of these minor-chord, gray-skies
anthems seem to be yearning to do just that. The result is a tune
such as "Talk in Tongues," a half-unplugged, vaguely Beatlesque
acoustic jam that merely seems bummed. Judging from all the mopey
lyrics and bittersweet melodies, the singer meant for the album
to be an Affecting Experience. But despite its immaculate odes to
unhappiness, White Lilies Island itself is ear candy with about
as much emotional resonance as Kathie Lee Gifford's latest televised
crying jag.
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