Next month I’m hoping to witness a live performance from this young USA singer/songwriter at the beautiful Lowry Centre in Manchester. My enthusiasm to see Regina Spektor initially stemmed from various articles I had read; I was going ‘sight unseen’ not having heard a note of her music. Well now I have and I’m even more excited at the prospect. BEGIN TO HOPE is the young lady’s third album and exudes originality, generic musical influences, piano and vocal mastery, and even something of her Russian origin. And of course there’s solid evidence of a rapidly developing, poetic songwriter with much to say and an inimitable way of saying it…

Opening track Fidelity opens with a heavy bass rhythm sharply contrasted by plucked strings. It’s a bittersweet love song perfectly matched to an expressive, young voice, and carried off by a melody that stays long after the song has gone. In short, it’s a wonderful, accessible slice of serious pop. Next up is Better that opens with Spektor dabbing the keys of her piano before a host of other instruments pile in to accompany her wandering high octave vocal. It’s the closest thing to single chart pop on the album, and could well fly if released as such. The tempo and noise take a dive with the very beautiful, haunting acoustic love song called Samson, before the highly original vibe of single release On The Radio makes its fabulous entrance. It’s a song with a delectable mix of genres, most notably the regular flashes of classical strings that give the song a quite unique vibe. With its fabulous melody, wonderful vocal and harmonies this song has to go to number one given its fair share of airplay.

There’s diversity aplenty here, from the heavy contemplation of Field Below to the jaunty vibe of Hotel Song, to the Eastern European intensity of Apres Moi, and the classical style piano of 20 Years Of Snow. Then there’s the dark, rock guitar vibe of That Time, and the electronic heartbeat of the highly unusual song Edit. In fact whichever way you turn you’ll come up against one superb musical surprise after another. Lyrically Spektor wins hands down and there’s no better example than the heavily blues based Lady: “Lady sings the blues so well, as if she means it, as if it’s hell down here in this smoke filled world, where the jokes are cold, they don’t laugh at jokes, they laugh at tragedies…” With the sax coming on strong and lonesome towards the end of the song I’m left believing that this is a truly great modern blues song.

BEGIN TO HOPE is a pretty special record, and Spektor a pretty special young singer/songwriter.

4.5/5