Drastic Fantastic

by

KT Tunstall

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Making "Drastic Fantastic" in the same studio Arctic Monkeys recorded "Favourite Worst Nightmare" had a knock-on effect on her guitar, she said.

Certainly the stylish Scot's strings sound as they've undergone more of a thrashing this time round.

KT has taken all the dinner party-pleasing mellow elements that made "Eye To The Telescope" such a success and chucked them into the mix with a fat dollop of funk and a layer of grit.

"Drastic Fantastic" finds the 32-year-old from St Andrews again contradicting the stereotype of the navel-gazing singer-songwriter strumming her acoustic guitar.

Spirited KT once described her music as "stompy, sensitive girl-blues", and the portrayal is now even more fitting.

For all its pop tunes, "Drastic Fantastic" is surprisingly raw-boned.

You can hear it on first single "Hold On", with its near R&B beat, and the toe-tapping "Funnyman" with its indie stylings and moody mandolin.

"Little Favours" meanwhile, is a spunky ode to teen lust, while "Saving My Face" tackles the thorny topic of going under the knife.

Vocally, KT sounds even more confident as she travels through the vocal spectrum from sparky to smoky and sultry.

The album's highlight is "Someday Soon", a dreamily layered ballad she wrote about her painful brief split from bandmate Luke Bullen.

Another winner.

This Is the Life

Made of Bricks

During Beauty of Uncertainty on her new album Drastic Fantastic, Scottish singer KT Tunstall tells us, "There's no sense in traveling if we've already been that way." That sentiment was very apparent on her debut, Eye to the Telescope, where every song was carefully crafted without repeating themes or sounds yet still having the ability to keep each song under the umbrella of adult contemporary. That helped garner the album a rare 5-star rating (out of two hundred and twenty-one album reviews, I have only given out four 5-Stars).

The quote can also be applied to the new disk where Tunstall wisely doesn't true to recreate the quirky hit Black Horse and the Cherry Tree. And that is the blessing and the curse of Drastic Fantastic. That hit was a huge risk that paid off tremendously but on the new disk Tunstall tends to play it safe carefully crafting each song into something that is more traditionally found on adult contemporary radio.

There are some flashes throughout the album like the funky upright bass found on the first single Hold On, but the bassist on the song rarely gets a moment to shine as the instrument spends most of the song forced into the background of the backing track. Then near the end there is a smoky, slow burner Beauty of Uncertainty that builds like a train coming down the track.

The rest of the album though falls directly into Adult Contemporary heavyweights Sheryl Crow and Matchbox Twenty territory: there is nothing horrible but then again there is nothing that really stands out. The polished edges may garner her more radio play, but KT may want to leave the wax behind for her next album if she want to make another album as good as Eye to the Telescope.