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Mirah
(a)spera
Review By Chris Drabick
It took her long enough. Though she filled her four-year absence with quite a bit of material (a remix record, a live record, the odds and sods release That Old Days Feeling and Share This Place, a collaboration with Spectratone International), this is Mirah’s first proper release since she received an impressive amount of ooh’s and ahh’s for C’Mon Miracle. That album found Mirah in an impressively mature space both as a writer and as a vocalist; gone were the sophomoric (if personally revealing) sex references and resolutely lo-fi surroundings of You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This. In their place were increased sonic fidelity and a strong-voiced Mirah, and both of these return for the cleverly titled (a)spera (the alternate
spelling switches the meaning of the Latin from despair to hope).
Unfortunately, the material here is somewhat hit-or-miss. The record’s best moments stand up to her finest; “Education” is loping and moving,” and “Country of the Future” retains some of the world-music feel that populated Miracle to fine effect. Through the record’s second half, though, the proceedings begin to drag, as “The River” is overlong and overly dull, and the melodically excellent “While We Have the Sun” practically cries out for a more energetic arrangement. After an extended layoff, the hope was that (a)spera would mark Mirah’s return with something far more substantial. Don’t despair, though, as most of the record is a fine return if not a return to form.
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