Sweet Injections

Album Review

Continuing a gradual progression from the cosmopolitan singer/songwriter pop of her debut (and only U.S. release to date) Morbid Latenight Show, and the moody, trip-hop inflected Beautiful So Far towards the more fully electronic dance-pop of her later work, Bertine Zetlitz's third album contains her brightest and catchiest pop songs to date, as well as plenty of typically dark, cryptic material. Where Zetlitz is concerned, there's no great divide between darkness and pop — just take a look at those adorably sinister, barbed candy-cane vines threatening to encircle her on the cover and you'll get the idea. Her characteristic juxtaposition of girlish sweetness with subtle, psychological menace pervades much of the album, as if to confirm her softly cooed assertion that she's "the sickest girl you'll ever find." Even the album's glossiest moment, the spun-sugar synth-disco of "Girl Like You" (produced by Richard X), involves the disquieting mind games of a needy, manipulative, obsessive lover. Other standouts include the start-stop funk of opener "For Fun," which offers even more unsettling promises ("I will make your soft hands tremble/I will make your ego burst"), and the stunningly gorgeous "Twisted Little Star," which, title notwithstanding, is relatively genuine in its sweetness. After a consistently stellar first half, up through the funky, widescreen synth pop of "Wild Kisses," the album loses steam with a run of sparser, calmer, less memorable material, even if nothing can really be called a misstep. Less consistent and slightly less cohesive than the excellent, fully realized albums that immediately preceded and followed it, Sweet Injections is nevertheless a worthwhile and enjoyable work by an undeniably talented, idiosyncratic artist, and well worth seeking out. ~ K. Ross Hoffman, Rovi