reviews / 2010

SERAFINA STEER - Change Is Good, Change Is Good

Name: SERAFINA STEER – Change Is Good, Change Is Good
Item: Change Is Good, Change Is Good
Rating: 5
Author: Lorenzo Righetto

2010 (Static Caravan)

alt-folk, electro-pop

by Lorenzo Righetto

Lost in lush Gothic sketches, the English singer-songwriter doesn't actually seem to have the means to let the listener get lost in the gloomy, suspended atmospheres of this new record of hers, with its enigmatic, obsessive title: "Change Is Good, Change Is Good". Steer slots in sideways among the most medieval-leaning ranks of female singer-songwriters (she's a harpist like Newsom, and flaunts Francophone flourishes like "Margoton"): her tale from a hypothetical, fairy-tale Avalon is also shaped by muffled electronic touches, which at times even spill over into drab techno attempts (!), as on "How To Haunt A House Party".

Her voice frequently shifts speed and direction, searching for an opening that will let her latch onto some kind of melody: but the enchanted labyrinth she's wandered into seems to crush her, pushing her to cut compositions short halfway through, so that they end up sounding interrupted, with no way out, precisely. Far from the evocative purity of higher-ranking reference points (Sharron Kraus and Marissa Nadler), her retreat into electro-pop solutions feels like a surrender foretold.

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17/05/2010

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Lorenzo Righetto, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition