It’s impossible to forget the first time Sarah Blasko’s pure, spectral, God-given instrument blessed your ears.
For this scribe, it was 2009’s We Won’t Run, with its beseeching chorus melody that still moves me to tears to this day – every single time! Sarah Blasko sounds like the most elegant songbird of them all (probably a swan). And in crestfallen mode, she remains untouchable.
Breathy, silken and ethereal, Blasko’s voice also channels the haunted howls of a theremin at times. See: Bothering Me, a song about a painful friendship breakup (“I wish we never met” – ouch!), which also reckons with the loss of her younger self’s imagined future: “Now I do not likе what I see/ A life not aligned with my dreams…”
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Blasko’s voice is I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain’s stunning centrepiece (der), with piano – her first instrument – co-starring, from opener The Way’s stately piano intro right through ‘til the Divine closer’s final chord.
“Met you in church when God was on my side/ You said goodbye when it all went to hell…” – Blasko was raised in the Pentecostal church, which informs the gospel choir-enhanced lead single.
We didn’t realise Goodbye! could be bettered, but when Ryan Downey’s honeyed croon melts into this broken-hearted lament the swoon-o-meter climaxes. Sax attack closes out Emotions, illustrating unchecked feelings spilling everywhere: “No one can save you from the depth of my emotions…”
An exquisite explosion of melodies offset by the dark vulnerability of her vocal delivery, Blasko’s seventh album offers solace to the dispirited.
Homework: Seek out Blasko, the fascinating documentary about the making of this album, which is currently available to stream on iView.
LABEL: INDEPENDENT
RELEASE: OUT NOW
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