A nexus is defined as a connection, or link - a joining or bonding together of something or other. How profound. Perhaps SARAH FIMM decided that the songs on her album were to take the listener on a musical odyssey, linked together in a chain of emotional and philosophical soliloquies - a window into her tormented soul for us to mere mortals to marvel at how erudite and perceptive she is on the mechanics of the universe, nay the mystery of life itself.
This album, however, turns out to be a deeply depressing, self-gratifying and pretentious collection of tunes, all 15 of which seem to be in D minor, the saddest of all keys. Obviously.
The first couple of songs would be nice as background music. But less than half-way into the album it is genuinely hard to fight the urge to immerse your head in a bucket of concrete, let it set, and fling yourself into a reservoir.
The production is superb, there are plenty of clever atmospheric electronic effects all over the show. Fimm's voice is undoubtedly lovely, but she sounds exactly, and I mean as pretty darn close as it gets, to Sarah McLaughlin; and her piano technique and songs could have been all lifted direct from Tori Amos' material. Its one thing having strong influences, but I'm surprised that Fimm hasn't been done for plagiarism yet.
Here she sings about broken relationships - no suprises there - and then she sings about the sea for a bit, before reverting back to harping on about being dumped. I wanted to shake this woman and tell her to cheer up for Heaven's sake! So bored was I whilst listening to her album, that I realised that Fimm is a big fan of words that end sounding like "Eee" (no she's not Northern). How about this for a game - listen to the album (under duress) and try to guess how many song titles you can find that rhyme with "Mercury"... Hmmmm, let's see - "Losing Velocity", "Space Journey", "Be What You Wanna Be", "I Would Like a Cup of Tea", "Three Sugars is Fine For Me", etc [please note that Fimm didn't write the last two titles, and sadly you won't find them on her album].
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I reckon that this album was created on a musical shopping trip in the Arndale Centre of Despair. Fimm picked and chose the most dark and soul-crushing elements of Tori Amos and Sarah McLaughlin (neither of whom are renowned for their chirpiness), had a listen to Mike Oldfield's tubular bells and thought "I'll have some of that", and mushed it all together. As a result we have here not so much a dark pool, but more of a muddy puddle.
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