ORENDA FINK - Invisible One

This "Invisible One", the solo debut from

Orenda Fink of Azure Ray, isn't half bad. Fine, delightful songwriting, just intimate enough,

catchy without overdoing it, at times even quite forceful. That said,

the problem is the following: is it worth the purchase price? Well, considering the

glut of releases in recent years, the cost of CDs, file sharing and all

the rest… you be the judge, but I think you get the picture.

Ok, let's be honest, for an album like this I'd never spend

20 bucks or thereabouts. The production, too clean, is already irritating, and it's not that

we were expecting Thalia Zedek or Lydia Lunch, to be clear. The songs, moreover, just slip by

and don't even stick in your mind, so much so that by the end of the listen you're left with the feeling of

being left empty-handed. And to think that the opening "Leave It All",

a psychedelic ballad with an effective melody and strings galore, seemed to

hint at something different. Then the songs follow one after another,

each one just like the last.

In fact, though, "Invisible One Guard The Gate" is

still a fine track, a sort of pianistic round dance with autumnal moods,

in the vein of Fiona

Apple, so to speak.

Then we reach the storm

pop of “Bloodline”, whose job is to shake us out of the torpor into which

we eventually sink after the first two songs. But let's be honest,

it's not really all that great, and one would (does) feel tempted to say that Aimee Mann

has written better songs than this. By the way, have I mentioned how much Fink's singing style

resembles that of the siren from “Bachelor N° 2”? There's no time,

since with “Blind Asylum” it's already some other psychedelic chanteuse being

(knowingly?) paid tribute to. Or plagiarized?

Handcuffs-worthy is the

aggressive pop-rock of “Dirty South”, but maybe Orenda wants to break through. Nothing

wrong with that, but Arcade Fire are all over commercial TV with an

album that is catchy, sure, but also intensely powerful. We cleanse our palate with the

slow “Easter Island”, before plunging into the idea-free void of the closing

“Animal”, supermarket-brand tribalism, like a Peter

Gabriel lobotomized by Anggun.

It's a "nice" album, "Invisible One", and that's precisely the problem.

and that's precisely the problem.

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30/04/2026