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Imogen Heap Ellipse CD Review

By: Ashley Pagano

There’s something unbelievably intriguing about Imogen Heap, and the music she creates. After Frou Frou, her collaboration project with Guy Sigsworth, split up, Imogen began putting music out on her own. Now Imogen Heap is amazing us all again with her new album, Ellipse, that showcases her originality and musical talent.

Ellipse wasn’t too much different from Imogen’s old music to me, but with that being said, I feel it was just as creative and well written as her other music. The first song on the album, which actually turned out to be my personal favorite overall, is called “First Train Home” and is lyrically very smart. The song, after only hearing it once, doesn’t really sound to unique or interesting, but it definitely grew on me. Imogen really tells a story, or situation in all her songs, and they are easy to understand and relate to.

The song “Wait It Out” was really gorgeous, a little slower, but still just as nice. Once again, as she has done in some of her songs on other albums like Speak For Yourself and iMegaphone, Imogen uses her own voice as accompaniment, and sings over herself, like she had in “Hide And Seek” from Speak For Yourself. She again does this in her song “Earth” which is a tad bit more upbeat and catchy than “Wait It Out”.

“Little Bird”, her fourth track on the album, didn’t really catch my interest. When I was listening to the album, I wanted to skip to the next track when this song came on. It’s not bad so to speak, just not a favorite of mine. I had the same problem with the song “Swoon”. It just sounded like a lot of her other tracks, and it didn’t keep me listening unfortunately.

A good introduction to a song is always what hooks a listener in, and the song “Tidal” does that just perfectly. It has an interesting sound at the beginning, and maintains that throughout the entire song, which led to me listening to this song quite often. I feel it was definitely one of the better tracks on the album.

Words cannot describe my love for the song “Between Sheets”. Lyrically, musically, everything in this song really just reeled me in. I love the vocals, and it really showcased Imogen’s Writing talent, with her elegant and mature sound to her voice and the overall style of the song. It had a very relaxing and peaceful feel. This song was definitely a close second as far as favorite tracks go.

“2-1” again was just not enough to keep me listening. Even lyrically it was a little disappointing for me. It was a much slower song than a lot of the others, but instead of being relaxing and peaceful I honestly just found it boring. Although I didn’t find it to be one of the best, what I can say for it is that the harmonies were beautiful, I just didn’t enjoy the melody of the song.

From this point on in the album, a lot of the songs seem repetitive to me. “Bad Body Double” didn’t stand out to me much. I also didn’t really understand it lyrically, or what the meaning of the song was.

When I saw the title of the song “Aha!” I wasn’t too excited to be honest, but I was wrong to think so, because I actually rather enjoyed it. The harmonies were chilling. The way she uses her voice in that song is truly phenomenal. This song sort of saved the album for me. It brought me right back in so I was ready to hear the next track.

The next song really surprised me, and I surprised myself with how much I really enjoyed the song. Though the song “The Fire” lacks lyrics, it still has a message, and a feel, and I got that just from the sound of crackling, like a real fire. Also while you hear what sounds like a fire, you also hear a beautiful piano piece, with a very soft and mellow sound, but it really gave me chills. I feel almost like this song should have opened the album, because I feel like this song is what music is all about, and that’s really moving someone with a song that simple. Another one of my favorite tracks, hands down, is “The Fire”.

Both “The Canvas” as well as “Half Life” again were a lot similar to some of the other tracks. Not they any of these songs were terrible, but not quite what I had expected. All of that aside, this is an album definitely worth buying. I would recommend this to anybody, because it has a mix of beautiful and moving songs, and upbeat and catchy songs, with a nice variety and a nice sound, it’s worth a listening to.