Teleporting red dress alert!
[Video][Website]
[6.50]
Iain Mew: It was the deliciously creepy video that first got my attention (“Das ist nicht Liebe; das ist Stalking” as the voiceover on German TV when I first saw it had it). The song turns out to stand up just fine in its own right, too. The strings running away and acting like a chorus of mocking laughter is the best part – I’ve also loved similar when deployed by Patrick Wolf, Tom McRae and probably others that I’m forgetting — but it only works because Mia sets it up so well, making every small change in tone sound ominous and significant.
[8]
Michaela Drapes: You don’t need to know German to follow the dramatic arc of this track, and I can’t think of higher praise than that! Diekow’s crisp diction is mindbogglingly great, especially when paired with her clear-throated singing voice. Unfortunately, it’s too much of a rarity in lady singers, that kind of emotional power without the default resorting to melismatic warbling. The fact that she doesn’t swing the other direction, into insufferable twee-ness, is very appreciated here.
[8]
Anthony Easton: Her bio quotes her as saying “I love German because of its accuracy, its remarkably precise and very direct words.” I love listening to German singers, because it reminds me of cabaret and lieder, no matter what is being spoken — that and the hard k’s. The translation seems to rest on the weltsschermtz, with a fantastic line about the melancholic potential of taxi drivers. Would work better without the grid of generic dance music signs.
[7]
Will Adams: This pretty trinket of a song has been frustrating me all week, because the perfect comparison exists somewhere out there, but I have been grasping at straws, throwing out everything I can think of – Sia? Regina Spektor? Sara Bareilles? Vanessa Carlton? – in a futile attempt to find it. Hopefully one of the other writers will illuminate the path. After that, I’ll probably never listen to “Herz” again.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Yo Slacktory, if you take requests, give me the alt-kids-going-“whoa-oh-ah-oh” supercut. The quartet broods more than soars, so that’s a difference right there. “I knock so loudly on your door/I’m still your friend” — if you’ve ever wondered how to soundtrack an intervention, start here.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: The wooze and stab of the strings go a long way towards alleviating what might otherwise be just one more twinkly indie anthem.
[6]