It’s a good source of iron.
[Video][Website]
[5.25]
Thomas Inskeep: Five years on from the all-time-classic ballad “It Kills Me” and three from her Grammy-winning Cee-Lo duet, I’ve gotta say I did not see this curveball coming. A lightly skanking ballad, your enjoyment of this will be largely dependent on your enjoyment of ska. Of which I don’t have much. Good lyrics, gorgeously sung, but still: ska.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: Coming off like neo-soul ska (with that breakdown before every verse hardly making matters better), Fiona is still not nearly as good the vocalist as she keeps selling herself as. The writing on her song is too inconsistent and patchy, yet she overcompensates by using this as room to flex. It’s altogether pretty standard for her, yet tiring to know we’re still going through with her substandard work and refusal to improve.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Shouting through the ska instead of figuring out how to make the lyrics signify, Fiona nevertheless has an attractive timbre, indebted to Roberta Flack and Amy Winehouse. The Flack portion of her DNA is what confines her to the “expert local artist” category.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: It’s not much more than a nice song showcasing Melanie Fiona’s voice, but her singing is strong enough to turn this into something more memorable than it probably deserves to be.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: One immediate advantage over Salaam Remi’s last try at this metaphor: it does not feature Akon wailing “I banged her!” Melanie Fiona’s career is in a curious position, and “Bite the Bullet” is off most trends: retro of the dusky, not shiny variety; old-school R&B wordy syllable-splay of a verse (“you think you have the ability to two women equally / I don’t have the energy to fight for your exclusivity”); ska. Ordinarily that’d be refreshing, but Fiona can’t decide whether to emulate Amy or Akon, and produces a blown-out, autotuned patch of the two.
[5]
Ramzi Awn: Bullet songs are held to a high standard, and Fiona does it no disservice. Her voice doesn’t hurt either.
[6]
David Sheffieck: Biting the bullet isn’t generally a romantic phrase, nor a positive one. But if Fiona can’t overcome the former connotation, she does a damn good job of making it sound so good that it’s easy to forget she’s singing about re-committing to a relationship she’d be better off out of. The lyric’s complex, frustrated, cyclical; the vocal tells a story of overcoming odds and succeeding. The tension may be troubling, but it’s also rewarding.
[8]
Brad Shoup: Fiona ventures into huffers’ rock, threatening the seams during every chorus. The track bops with excellent support; it underlines her in the verses and lets launch otherwise. I can’t help but think a dub version would help us both relax.
[6]