Born Sia Furler in Australia, the R&B vocalist broke in 2000 with her hit “Taken for Granted.” At the time, a swell of similar female singers were cropping up and Sia was dismissed by critics as a Dido/Nelly Furtado clone. Her image received some resuscitation in 2001 however, when she teamed up with Zero 7 on their Simple Things album.
Taking her cue from Zero 7, Sia treads similar ground in Colour. Light trip-hop loops combine with swelling strings and acoustic guitar to produce a nice, yet derivative groove. At many times upon listening to Colour, it sounded like a remix project for Coldplay. Formulaically, the songs run similar throughout. They begin with quiet, tribal drums while Sia barely whispers her way through the opening. This is supposed to build to a kind of anthemic bombast in the chorus, but Sia’s voice can’t quite handle moving the listener.
On songs like “Moon” Sia comes off sounding like Natalie Imbruglia (remember her?) with VH1-ready overproduction. The biggest problem stems from the lushness that producer Jimmy Hogarth wants to establish. Lush can be beautiful, but it has to also be interesting. His production here is the audio equivalent of a rice cake; not enough flavor to really evoke any kind of opinion, just ambivalence.
Not all of Colour is bad. In fact, there are a few songs other than “Breath Me” that are fantastic. In “The Church of What’s Happening Now,” Sia layers her voice to sound like a church choir and produces ones of the only memorable choruses on the album with, “Throw away yesterday/Today is a brand new day,” which evokes the tragic death of Sia’s former lover. Also, on “Church” Sia actually tries to use her voice, instead of just letting it limp along. Over the huge chorus (always) she plays with her voice a bit. However, she kind of reminds me of the Black Eyed Peas chick.
Lacking any guests, Sia’s voice comes off too breezy to carry 16 tracks. Production tows the line between mundane and exceptional, especially the ethereal horn and accordion showing up in “Butterflies.” Relaxing, but otherwise, not necessarily engaging.
"Colour the Small One" is on sale January 12, 0006 from Astralwerks.
