It was maybe a bit too shocking when quirky songstress Marina Diamandis traded the indie-rock and new-wave textures of her 2010 debut "The Family Jewels" for the big pop choruses and gleaming electronic beats in her 2012 sequel "Electra Heart". Though the quality of her music didn't exactly suffer from this genre shift, her core artistic persona was a bit smothered by the crowded roster of mainstream producers who tended to favor the pop sounds and frivolity over satirizing the idea of popular music itself. Now with the affair well behind her, Diamandis perhaps realized that "Electra Heart" was too jarring a step into the masses, so she doesn't make the same mistakes again on her third album, "Froot". Only two cooks are in the kitchen this time: Diamandis, who provides all lyrical content, and producer David Kosten. Together, these two pull off a neat trick with "Froot", pulling in the introspective and humanistic elements from Marina's debut and synthesizing them through the sounds of singer-songwriter, new-wave, and pop. Essentially, they just split the difference between her first two records and handpicked the best traits from both of them, but that alone doesn't accurately reflect the true artistic progression from "Electra Heart" to this. It's quite uncanny how Diamandis can begin "Froot" with "Happy", a song that lays her rawest emotions bare, supported only by twinkling synths and acoustic guitar, and then jump into the light-weight pop of the title track just seconds later. She repeats this pattern several times, bouncing back and forth between upbeat dance songs ("Blue", "Savages") and intimate, alternative ballads ("I'm A Ruin", "Immortal"). It's an effortless task for Marina, who not once feels like she's forcing the material or reaching for emotional depth that isn't there. If that wasn't impressive enough, then also take into account that there are almost no tracks that suck the momentum; each song works in tandem with the others to operate as a whole piece of work, never scattershot or unfocused. Then there's also the fact that Diamandis has never been more affective as a vocalist, delivering lines about fruit and roses with equal power as those tales of human savagery and betrayal. It's readily apparent that she heavily examined the flaws in her first two albums and consolidated the strongest parts, leaving the filler behind. She nearly exceeds in constructing a masterpiece, with just a couple of plaintive detours halting perfection ("Gold" and "Forget", both placed early enough in the album that they don't detract from an otherwise astounding set of songs). After taking the always messy steps into super-stardom, Marina and the Diamonds has wound up with her best album so far, mixing all of the unique aspects of her music together in an exuberant fashion.
Recommended Tracks in Bold:
1. Happy 2. Froot 3. I’m A Ruin
4. Blue 5.
Forget 6. Gold
7. Can’t Pin
Me Down 8. Solitaire 9.
Better Than That
10. Weeds 11. Savages 12.
Immortal
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