Monarch: Lay Down Your Jeweled Head

Leslie Feist has firmly planted her flag in the new continent of Whisper-Rock. Believe! Repetition and dynamics can become static fields where the slightest changes and nuances stand out. Feist's songs mix together sparse, stripped down guitars, soberingly personal vocals, melodica, a varied backbone of rhythm and lyrically portent storytelling twisted into odd timings. Simple! Tapping the same vein as Peter Gabriel and Cat Power, her songs pluck at the slightly out of tune strings of the broken heart.