Feist

The soul-searching apparent on Feist’s latest and best album offers no easy answers, but a distillation of longing, trepidation and regret. If there is a clue to unlock this complicated heart, it comes in the opening moments of "I Feel It All,” a buoyant but wistful song that tips you off about what’s to come, a flood of emotion that never overwhelms, as simple and as difficult to orchestrate as life. Feist’s songs are imbued with the weight of knowing that one is as responsible for plunging oneself into misery as into joy. The raw nature of her address makes you feel like all of these songs emerged from the same emotionally turbulent sea, regardless of when they were written. Vocals frequently have that first-take feel, charged with the intensity and newness of the emotion, and yet so finely wrought. The album has the elegant ‘70s feel of Let It Die but allows things to get more complicated, and has the lyrical richness of her under-celebrated debut, Monarch. Honest without being ingenuous, stylish without grandiose production, The Reminder is testament to her enduring charms.