Regina Spektor: Home, Before And After

- Regina Spektor's eighth studio album Home, Before And After is her first release since 2016 besides a couple of singles within that six-year period. With a massive back-catalogue of works drawing inspiration from mythology, fairytales, or just characters or scenarios invented for the sake of the song, paired with Spektor's kitschy and endearingly awkward songwriting style, Home, Before And After brings exactly what fans have come to expect.

The first single, Becoming All Alone, is a Waiting for Godot-esque narrative bringing everything lovable from past records together. A conversation between the subject and God, it's simple lyrically and musically, and sets high expectations for the rest of the release.

While previous releases have fallen in line with twee British singer-songwriters such as Kate Nash and Imogen Heap, this record seems to be influenced somewhat by Fiona Apple. No stranger to switching up the way words are approached in her music, Spektor often employs a strong New York accent, and many of the tracks, most notably Up The Mountain and Loveology, stress words in a way similar to Apple. Even just the way vocals are used on these tracks as a rhythmic device.

Probably the most ‘Regina Spektor’ track on the album is Spacetime Fairytale, with its gorgeous swelling piano motifs and orchestral flourishes and completely random tap number at the halfway point. Yes, tap number, and no there’s no video for this one just yet. The song plays out like musical theatre and comes to a complete stop to a soft jazz shuffle against the faint echo of tap shoes. It’s a perfectly melodramatic and kitschy piece of music that follows a unique narrative arc.

In the past, Spektor has claimed that writing a "diary type song" doesn't feel natural to her- "I want to write a classic like Yesterday, but weird songs about meatballs and refrigerators come to my head- I can't help it." This is maybe the least quirky album overall, drawing more from reality, or so it seems, than fiction and containing fewer lines thrown in for the sake of a rhyme. A long awaited release with high expectations, Spektor delivers that same authentically unique songwriting style, coupled with vocals that are stronger than they’ve ever been before.

- Alison Paris.