Fun fact: she was once Tom Waits’ nanny. Well, his children’s. Well, probably his children’s.
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[6.62]
Anthony Easton: The emotions of this work have an ambition — an anti-ethereality — that betrays the gossamer and silk musical underpinnings. I like when that happens.
[6]
Alfred Soto: She’s infatuated with slurring but the guitar and drum thwacks sound fantastic, especially when all three dovetail in a chorus of unusual melodic and emotional strength.
[7]
Colin Small: It’s important that her eccentricities don’t get in the way of the song’s relatability. If the song was great though, they’d make it even more poignant.
[7]
Jer Fairall: Enjoyably unpindownable, in that I hear strains of Celtic folk-rock, post-punk spaciousness, and Lilith Fair melodrama, but never enough of any in such an abundance that this belongs to any of the above traditions. Her voice, unconventional but easy on the ears, and her playing, technically adept in such a way that is more efficient than showy, make for something that’s certainly easy to appreciate, but the flightiness of the lyric, undoubtedly intended to carry us somewhere whimsical or fantastic, instead has the opposite effect. What’s meant to be surreal and exotic is instead alienating, a technically impressive composition that holds the listener at arms length with its impeccable craftsmanship and insistence in speaking in secret tongues.
[6]
Alex Ostroff: This is perpetually propulsive and pleasant, and the tension between the touch of despair I hear in the vocals and the hope of the instrumentation piques my interest. I still feel distanced from the performance, though. The best of this mystical/inspirational stuff — Florence’s first album or early-period Patrick Wolf — draws you into collective abandon, seizes hold of your voice, and shouts down your fears. “Born To” might be Jesca’s anthem, but it never makes the leap in my head from “I was born to,” to “We were born to.”
[7]
Will Adams: Since I’ve had Born to Die on heavy rotation for the last four months, seeing the title “Born To” creates a jarring tension in that blank space (“born to… what?”), but perhaps that’s the point. The verses teem with vivid imagery that evokes that disquieting fear I’ve often wrestled with: that I played no part in choosing the life I was born into, that even the slightest shift in the cosmos could have resulted in me living in a much less fortunate situation, and ultimately how lucky I am. Too bad that all this momentum gets sharply curtailed with the chorus’s clunky melody and vague lyrics: “And now you’ve got to get it with what you’ve got/With what you’ve been given or not.” What?
[6]
Brad Shoup: Starts off on the highway to the danger zone, but quickly takes the exit for Scandinavia. Hoop plays marvelously with the beat. There’s flatness to her voice, but also force, and when she starts swooping on the bridge (where she sounds like she’s singing backwads) it’s mighty affecting. Also: yes to the mandolin as propulsion.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Ecto raved about Jesca Hoop’s debut Kismet, but despite it having immediate, smart, gripping material (“Seed of Wonder,” “Intelligentactile 101“), I wound up skipping its tracks within a month. “Born To” is also immediate, smart and gripping; it even adds a wall of reverb and purposefully anthemic chorus for added pop value. Maybe The House That Jack Built will end up like, say, Lykke Li’s Wounded Rhymes, an uneven sophomore album saved by one fantastic track. Maybe it won’t be uneven at all; maybe “Born To” won’t end up fantastic like “I Follow Rivers” did. I’ll grade this optimistically.
[7]