Remember Us to Life, the Russian indie-pop wunderkind’s fifth major-label album and seventh overall, shows us a slightly different Regina Spektor. Though still innovative and soaked in wonder, her songwriting here contains much less of her spunk, quirk and distinctly “Soviet” kitsch, and instead thrives on nostalgia, earnestness, and rather personal subject matter. While it’s not as though her songs were never wont to tug at the heartstrings, this new, mature release finds her very honestly and personally confronting difficult emotions without much of a quirky sheen. It’s as if this was an album for her, and we just get to enjoy the introspective side effects.
The two opening singles kick things off sounding like classic Regina Spektor, and (along with the album as a whole) retain the intelligent piano bounce and smart, nuanced lyricism that make her great. As the album progresses, a variety of moods take hold, largely characterized by relatively tame, ballad-y composition. String sections and surprisingly simple piano progressions are often present, making for a dreamy, nostalgic, almost Christmas-y vibe on “Grand Hotel” but veering dangerously close to boring on long core tracks “Black and White” and “The Light”. The dangerous, punk-ish Regina Spektor of yore occasionally shows her face though. She makes appearances on “Small Bill$”, a menacing, dissonant groove complete with that humorously annoying accent reserved for words like “Coca-Cola”, and the ominous allegory “The Trapper and The Furrier”. The hard-hitting, verbose “Sellers of Flowers” finds a nice middle ground between the multiple shades of Spektor found elsewhere and resides comfortably as one of the best tracks.
Lyrically, the album is also quite keen on directness and with its candor reaches a poignancy usually achieved through metaphors or fictional characters in her previous work; lines like “I know the morning is wiser than the evening… so many things but I know they won’t help me” showcase a raw, transparent emotionality. If the whole album essentially plays out like we’re having a deep conversation with our old friend (an idea that might actually be alluded to with final track “The Visit”), “Obsolete” is the climax, when we ask “No, but how do you really feel?” We’re answered with a tumbling mine-cart ride on a piano riff down into the depths of her struggle. It’s bleak, and it’s long, with fractured brokenhearted lines like “Can’t compete/All I want/Is a sleep”, but my God is it powerful. (Rephrase this to remove again remove a bit of that personal voice)
At times resigned, reflective, honest, and ultimately hopeful, Remember is still a solid, if different, album. If you don’t find enough of the quirky, dynamic-changing, piano genius Regina Spektor, you have plenty of past albums to go visit that version of her in. We’re going to stay and talk to this one for a while.
