Hazardous

Album Review

Vanessa Amorosi's third studio album, Hazardous, was released only 18 months after her second album, Somewhere in the Real World, a major step up from the eight-year gap between Amorosi's second album and the one before it, The Power. Even so, Somewhere in the Real World was a widely appreciated album, one that showed a deeper, more defined perspective from the Australian beauty. However, on Hazardous, Amorosi truly soars on a set of tracks that are as ruthless and exciting, but even more radio accessible. The roof-raising vocals are still around, and wonderfully so, but alongside them comes a terrific set of single-style songs. In other words, there are twice as many songs on this powerful effort that could impact radio waves as the album before, an impressive feat since once again, Amorosi has had a hand in co-writing all of these tracks. Hazardous is in many ways a more commercial mix. The first two singles, "This Is Who I Am" and "Hazardous," are explosive, infectious, and toxic with their musical prowess and fury. In addition, the continuous collaboration throughout this effort with Swedish pop team MachoPsycho helps make the album slightly more cohesive. Therefore, it's no surprise that any of the tracks — like "Blow Me Away," "Baby's on Ice," and "Sleep with That" — could be as popular as the two first singles. The anthem-ready numbers do impede on the presence of ballads as beautiful as Amorosi's previous number one single, "Perfect," but this album is perpetually funky and glamorous, and Amorosi has wisely used it as a more energetic and spunky complement to her previous album, as opposed to a direct copy full of slow jams. And since there is such a short gap between Hazardous and Somewhere in the Real World, they easily come together as two parts of a glorious release, as opposed to two nearly complete releases.