CD Review: Kerli 'Love is Dead'
CD Review: Kerli 'Love is Dead'

Comments 0

Published: August 8, 2008

Pop/rock

(Island)

Estonian singer Kerli's debut disc, "Love is Dead,” proves it's possible to record an album that sounds intermittently like Bjork, Evanescence, Fergie, Kelly Clarkson, Regina Spektor, Alanis Morissette and Nine Inch Nails and still bore listeners into a trance. "Love is Dead” simply resembles a cross-marketing experiment in which no one walks away particularly happy — a "you got chocolate in my tuna fish” disaster.

Featured Gallery

Kerli begins her stylistic hopscotch with the title track, in which her strong, exotic vocals resemble Bjork circa "Homogenic,” but are used in the service of what sounds like an Amy Lee throwaway. Meanwhile, the wrongheaded click-track ballad "Walking On Air” centers on a "little creepy girl” with many little creepy things, then shifts suddenly into affirmation lyrics straight out of a Successories motivational poster. Then "Creepshow,” a bad little love letter to her homeland, takes Fergie's "London Bridge” cadence and merges it with Gwen Stefani's "Lonely Goatherd” monstrosity, "Wind It Up.” Yes, it's that good.

The most promising track on "Love is Dead” is the cold sunlight ballad "Beautiful Day,” which could pass for an acceptably benign Natasha Bedingfield single, but even then, the tightly compressed production sucks all the life out of Kerli's performance. Given Kerli's elastic vocal talents, there is clearly a place for the 21-year-old singer, but "Love Is Dead” is such a tremendous botch that it's hard to tell where that might be. For now, it's the cutout bin.

— George Lang