Regina Spektor: Soviet Kitsch : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

A young New York singer-songwriter who was plucked from obscurity and taken on tour by the Strokes in 2003, Regina Spektor has a winsome voice that brings to mind a more tuneful Bjork, and she plays the piano with some of Tori Amos' virtuosic intensity. On Soviet Kitsch, Spektor (who emigrated from the Soviet Union when she was nine) demonstrates a knack for sweetly nostalgic melodies that are as sad-eyed as the smile she often flashes in photographs. Her lyrics teeter on the edge of preciousness without falling in, as on "Poor Little Rich Boy," where she sings of a teenage character, "You're reading Fitzgerald, you're reading Hemingway/They're both supersmart and drinking in the cafes." Spektor's cabaret shtick occasionally wears thin, but Kitsch's highlights ("The Flowers," "Carbon Monoxide") have an appealing honesty that can't be faked.