Forget the annual Grammy hoopla and Academy Awards acclaim. How could such honors ever deign to compete with the Regina Spektor-appointed title bestowed on one Carl Prejektorinski in her song “Human of the Year”? Effusive praise, sure, but then again, there’s very little on the anti-folk piano priestess’ fifth album (and first since 2006 breakthrough Begin to Hope) that’s meant to be subdued.
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Where precursors Hope and Soviet Kitsch treaded more balanced, even darker ground, the only thing heavy about Far is the thick layer of production slathered on courtesy of four co-producers, including Hope’s David Kahne. That studio sheen doesn’t prevent Spektor from lyrically exploring 1984- and Matrix-like futures in “Human” and the skittering, soaring “Machine,” or once again touching on religious themes in the subdued-by-comparison “Blue Lips” and “Laughing With.”
Day-to-day micro-narratives are, for her, far more interesting aspects of the human condition, with the giddily off-kilter, domestic-bliss bounce of opener “The Calculation” and clap-happy “Folding Chair” serving as par for the course. Sparse, herky-jerky modern-mating ritual “Dance Anthem of the 80s” sets a similar scene in Hipsterville, USA, while the detail-drenched “Wallet” channels the happily-ever-after through a moment’s daydream. If only somewhere in Spektor’s ever-sunny, careening field of vision she could find some measure of gravitational pull, the contrasting highs might not seem so impossibly out of reach.
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