Brooke Fraser - "Flags" Album Review
December 10, 2010
Brooke Fraser’s latest album “Flags”, released on October 12, 2010, gripped me from the first few bars of the opening tune “Something in the Water”. It was like musical love at first sight – how is it that she hadn’t been on my radar before now? This Kiwi (that’s someone from New Zealand, if you weren’t aware) has been playing music in one form or another for most of her life. If I hadn’t done a little more research on Fraser, I probably would have never guessed that she’s typically released albums in the Christian/Gospel genre. The first words that popped into my head as I gave “Flags” its first play-through were folk-pop. I think the mish-mash of those two things describes her sound almost perfectly.
“Something in the Water” is an easy choice for the first single of the album – if you ask me, it’s probably the strongest song of the 11 album tracks, and probably is also the most “radio-ready” song as well. The soaring “Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh” harmonies backed by kick-drum in the chorus bring to mind Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros tune “Home”, and also remind me of Fanfarlo’s sound – that mix of really good male and female voices combined in just the right way.
Another stand-out track is “Who Are We Fooling”. The beautifully haunting harmonies with Aqualung coupled with the delicate piano melodies in the background are reminiscent of The Civil Wars. Talk about tugging on your heartstrings – this is one of those incredibly poignant songs that could send you into an emotional tailspin if it reaches your ears at a time when those lyrics speak to a situation you are in the middle of: “So we’re back here again/Tiptoeing ‘round the edge of the end/Wonderin’ who will be last to admit/That we’re finally over”. While we’re on the subject, the lyrics to this song are so deep and poetic, for example “It’s funny how sad the funny things get/As you grow older”. There just aren’t words to describe how very true that can be.
On a more upbeat note – “Jack Kerouac” is a more fun-sounding tune, with a beat almost akin to what you’d hear played on a steel drum on some beautiful island in the Caribbean. “Crows & Locusts” is probably the only tune that might lend itself a bit to Brooke’s past Christian/Gospel recordings. Dealing with the obvious plague reference, this tune has a very epic sound – I pictured it fitting perfectly in the background of a very intense scene in a movie. It would be perfect for that situation. For the vocals in the last song and title track of the album, “Flags”, Fraser seems to channel Sarah McLachlan. It has a similar feel to McLachlan’s “Angel” or “Adia”.
Brooke Fraser seems to be such a versatile artist – I could compare her to KT Tunstall, The Civil Wars, and Sarah McLachlan in just the mention of a few songs off of this latest album. I’m very grateful for this introduction to her music, and I’m certain this won’t be the last we hear from her, even here in the U.S., thousands of miles away from the place Brooke calls home.
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