By Liz Belilovskaya

Natasha Bedingfield’s new album Strip Me is an interesting record containing diverse subcategories of pop music mixed and infused with steady up-tempo beats. It is not a particularly original album but it contains a lot variation in the styles featured and Natasha is a very powerful singer.  She fluctuates between ballads of love all the way through electronic style songs of empowerment to R&B inspired laments. She gives fans range and that’s always a welcomed attribute for an album.

“Unexpected Hero” stands out as slower and more organic than the bulk of the Strip Me, which flaunts a very processed texture with heavy mixing and manipulations. This track distinguishes itself for its more realistic and instrumental characteristic. Sounding a bit like Amy Winehouse, Natasha’s voice has a similar raw, unpolished energy. A steady. flow of rhythm follows a few opening moments of acoustic guitars and vocals. Natasha’s cues the music and as soon as the tempo gets predictable it changes enough to surprise the listener.

Piano-based ballad “Try” finds Natasha showcasing her soulful vocal abilities, atop an orchestral foundation. While it’s short, it is a nice, slow mellow that floats from beginning to end. Natasha mainly sings of how it’s never too late to tell someone you love them. “Try” is charming, and full of good intent, but not much in the way of lyricism or musicality.

“Weightless” brims with R&B spirit, embedding many powerful, soulful vocal overlays into electronically programed background beats. Unfortunately the combination is hastily mixed, as Natasha’s voice muffles an overcrowded mix of sloppy sound. Unlike other songs on the album like “All I Need” that use electronic components, “Weightless” doesn’t successfully blend many elements into a smooth sounding sequence. Bedingfield’s voice is more of a distraction than a lovely component in this piece.

Also more successful at blending electronic dance music and R&B is “Touch.” Natasha’s voice is steadier as she engages in a lot of sing-talking, crafting a slick as hell flow. She gets to show off her pipes on a club techno platform, with lyrics that chronicle a series of events and how they interconnect, illustrating the way lives “touch.”

“Run Run Run” is replete with choir-style touches emerge when least expected. This track is synthesized and programmed but more vocally driven than beat heavy. Natasha’s voice is paired over her own singing, employing various deviations of the sample creating a choir effect that halts abruptly at the conclusion.

Natasha Bedingfield has one of those rare evocative voices that ring with emotion. These kinds of voices should be allowed to find their way and push their range rather than be hamstrung by overproduction and hidden by pop-pandering construction. That’s the main issue with Strip Me. Most of the album, aside from the above songs, blend together as slightly above average (mainly due to Natasha’s stunning voice) but meander around a similar level. The constant throughout the album is Bedingfield’s voice which is rich, powerful and effective.

But sometimes there is too much of it all at once. Because her voice is so far reaching, the mixing and layering are unnecessary and many times, create more noise than composition, a vocal ability this unique should not be distracted from. Strip Me is a good album and Natasha is certainly gifted but she should step away from such generic music and strip down to her real essence.

Natasha Bedingfield-“Touch”

08.Touch
3.25 out of 5

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