Kiria- One
Girl Rock. It's something of a beast of extremes. You have the archetypal goddesses of rock perfection. Debbie Harry. Brody Dalle. Siouxsie Sioux. Looking at you. But, being a girl, I feel I am within my rights to say that there is a relentless trend of girl rock with the unyielding power of the 'cringe' running right through it. The awful situation where you know exactly what they're trying to do, but they fail. In a similar vein to when a girl tries to get into football to impress boys, making themselves look daft, and simultaneously letting down the cause for those that genuinely do know what they're talking about. All of the unflattering latter descriptions apply to Kiria, and her debut album 'One'.
Kiria's mission statement is to apparently give 'pop-punk' an image overhaul. Two problems with that. This record is about as pop-punk as a kitten playing the duelling banjo tune from 'Deliverance'; and if it's an image overhaul, its the equivalent of putting make-up on a drunken lad for a laugh. In a word, it's horrid. Why the intense dislike? A number of reasons.
Firstly, it's an incredibly confused record. The style goes from the middle-of-the-road rock of 90's girl bands on tracks like 'Jelly Baby' and 'Make Up', (hands up who remembers 'Hepburn'? 'Alisha's Attic'? That's what we're dealing with here.) to horrible twee and misfired Lily Allen-esque ditties like 'Mirror Of You' complete with sickening xylophone. It's like eating so much candyfloss your teeth have dropped out. Kiria also experiments with occasional lapses into her native London twang, which, unless you commit to fully, a la Kate Nash, sounds muddled to slip in and out of. To add to the indecision, she even experiments with a strong reggae sound on 'And Another Thing'. Yes, it really is something that needs to be heard to be believed.
So, moving away from the overall feel, the second problem is that 'One' is absolutely riddled with horrendous lyrical cliches. An example. The amount of times in any song which features the word 'girl', you can bet your bottom dollar that the phrase 'diamonds and pearls' will feature elsewhere. Prince, being utterly godly, gets away with it. Kiria, you don't. Not only does she fling herself into the arena of cliches, but aforementioned cliche crops up at least twice, in both 'Fussy Girl' and 'Make Up'...perhaps more, I don't know, I was busy reassuring my ears that everything would be okay. Stefani-influenced track 'Crazy' sounds as fresh as a bunch of browning carnations on a garage forecourt. Like most of the rest of the album, the lyrics are so hackneyed and trite, it makes for anything but a pleasurable musical experience.
This goes onto the next point of grievance. It's like an audiobook for a gossip magazine. Nearly every track is full of superficial nonsense and 'girl power' which not only sounds dated, it just doesn't have a place to appeal. The whinging girliness will lose fans amongst the ladies and be like the wait outside the changing rooms on a Saturday shopping trip for the gents. 'Alright' is a perfect example of why this is such a horrible record; being essentially a post-feminist trip down 'aren't men rubbish' alley. We're beyond that now aren't we?
I have tried to find a positive. Silver linings and all that. 'Love Song' is actually a pleasant reprieve from the rest of the album. A pretty piano-based tune that sounds like a hidden track on a Lady Gaga record, Kiria allows us to have a breather. Closing track 'Live Sex On Stage' isn't quite as awful either, mainly because of the contribution of comedian Paul Kaye on vocals to accompany the slightly edgier punky sound. What else... she's a really rather attractive lady? Yes, I think that's all the positives.
Altogether, 'One' makes for a really rather unpleasant listen. Only give it a go if you want to revive the girl pop-rock that you remember watching on 'Top of the Pops' in 1995, or if you wanted to try and understand this really rather condemning review.