By
Vanessa Francis
Kiyomi Otaka
Shelter
(O Great Blue Thing Records)
Grade: D
Some voices are destined for fame.
Kurt Cobain's voice is famous for screaming and invoking teen angst. The voice of Britney Spears is famous for its bubble-gum pop sound. And then there are those voices which don't necessarily give off an aura of "fame."
Kiyomi Otaka is one of these voices, combining an even amount of whining and shrill "singing" on her latest album, Shelter.
Shelter sounds more like a compilation of scrapped Broadway show tunes rather than a traditional pop album. Otaka's sound is reminiscent of pretentious, coffee-shop kvetching - think Jewel meets Enya.
Otaka's free-flowing style of singing seems Pat Boone-inspired - set against New Age orchestration.
The track "Playing with Fire," for example, is a comprehensive work sung in a melancholy church choir manner. Only on this track, where Otaka's voice is digitally remastered into a four-part harmony, is her strained singing almost enjoyable.
Most of the album's songs are accompanied by Otaka's own piano playing. This aspect of the album proves beneficial to the overall quality of the composition. However, Otaka's voice remains its major flaw.
The tone she sets is overly dramatic - it's simply too much and too out of her range.
And she certainly isn't redeemed by her lyrics. In "The Well of Heaven," Otaka croons out such oh-so-deep musings as "What if a bear eats my foot" and "What if I had fish scales." What if indeed.
While the accompaniment of most of the songs is stellar, and the material, fair, Shelter is simply a CD-case of trying too hard. The songs seem forced and Otaka's overzealous whiny tone is nearly unbearable.
