Send "Katie Melua " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Katie Melua always had an air of The Stepford Wives about her. Inoffensive, house trained, porcelain pretty, scandal free. Her three polite albums sailed through the night scooping up squillions of sales despite nobody actually remembering any of the tunes. The only thing witnesses recalled when asked were Melua’s chucklesome lyrics—prime offenders being “If you were a piece of wood / I’d nail you to the floor” and “You set me free, as if you’d taken me / Halfway up the Hindu Kush”. Fnar, fnar.BUT SUDDENLY! In an act of admirable teenage rebellion (well, aged 25), she’s flipped the script and fired a distress signal to reclusive genius Sir William of Orbit. The boffin behind Madge’s lifesaving Ray of Light!? Hell this guy made All Saints listenable!! An escape plan was hatched. In no time, Melua was seen scaling the city walls and bustin’ free from her owner, Mike “Don’t Mention The Wombles” Batt, AKA Battman. The House is the closest pop has seen to a Logan’s Run-style breakout since “When Kylie Met Hutch”. Run Girl! Run! Don’t Look Back! Well OK, it’s not that exciting, but it’s sometimes darn close. We’re not talking Metal Machine Music, Achtung Baby, or Congratulations-level makeovers, but there are slithers of sound that deserve a doff of thy cap. The House begins with the delicately threatening “I’d Love to Kill You” (ooh, I told you, girl gone wild!) which transfixes like a Siren’s curse. “I’d love to kill you by a stream / Where no one can hear my baby scream”. Blimey, our lil’ girl’s all grown up. Spin in a few feral “ooooh’s” and you’ve got, zoiks, near Buckley-esque chills. This swiftly bows to recent single “The Flood”, surely one of the most WTF? comebacks in recent pop memory. It echoes not only Madge’s stunning, shivering “Frozen”, but also Queen’s crawling, operatic “Innuendo” as it swings seamlessly from Arabian funeral march to death disco and back again. In other words, “blimey” and “crikey”....full text |
| Bbc |
| On the final track of 2007’s Pictures, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s In My Secret Life, Katie Melua sang of missing a loved one. Three years on, she opens this fourth album with I’d Love to Kill You: “I’d love to kill you as you eat / The pleasure would taste so sweet”. She’s said that The House may shock fans who’ve followed her since her 2003 breakthrough, and such lyrical wickedness might imply she’s been through quite the stylistic sea change. As if. The House is as box-ticking of design as even the most fair-weather of fans should expect from an artist who’s never pushed at any creative envelope. At their worst these arrangements are lazy to the point of absolute stupor, as lively as a well-fed fatso snoozing in front of the Queen’s Christmas speech. This should allow Melua’s voice to shine through, but she can sound racked by tracheal rigor mortis, a whisper escaping where a little more of the wow factor that first attracted the ears of Dramatico boss Mike Batt would have improved proceedings. Batt, for the first time on a Melua album, makes no appearance (save for a single co-write) – in his place William Orbit produces, and former Robbie Williams collaborator Guy Chambers contributes to several songs. This new line-up hasn’t led to a considerable shift of dynamic, many songs contentedly shuffling at a mid-tempo pace. This is meant as no slight: Melua is the kind of artist who responds to demand, rather than one who writes to challenge her audience. As such The House is largely a success – those boxes, ticked. But it’s disappointing that she’s not edged that little further from her comfort zone given the promise of surprises....full text |
| Telegraph |
| Swapping a Womble for a Wonk, Katie Melua has taken up with ambient techno boffin William Orbit after three albums with the resolutely old-fashioned Mike Batt. If this suggests radical transformation, the fourth album from Radio 2’s easy-listening sweetheart contains nothing that would scare the horses or traumatise her fan base. Related Articles Katie Melua interview Dormant bank accounts to pay for Big Society projects Albania's modern-day blood feuds Harlequins success produced by team spirit, not climate of fear Liverpool v Aston Villa: crisis looms as Rafael Bentez hunts for answers Property in Spain, but not as we know it Orbit keeps his more extreme sci-fi instincts in check, content to add subtle shades of electronica beneath flowing, melodic, artfully structured and sweetly sung songs. The result, for the most part, keeps Melua firmly stationed in the middle of the road rather than sending her out into deep space. Yet, with it’s Dido-esque ambience and strong sense of personal empowerment, it does succeed in relocating the old‑fashioned girl in the 21st century. There has been something uncomfortably deceptive about the Melua story. She was effectively marketed as a young singer-songwriter with very conservative musical values, when actually the Brit school graduate was a mouthpiece for the considerably less photogenic veteran Batt. If The House is not entirely all her own work, at least she contributes to every song, locating her sweet, beautifully controlled voice in an authentic emotional and psychological landscape with poetic songs of desire and philosophical self-examination. Lead single The Flood is the best thing she has done, a restrained, thoughtful, slow-burning drama that lifts unexpectedly into a time-shifting pop dance groove. It was co-written with songwriter-for-hire Guy Chambers, best known for collaborations with Robbie Williams. Not that you’d guess. There are songs that hint at everyman pop (A Happy Place and Twisted, the latter written with Madonna collaborator Rick Nowels) but most maintain a restrained, intimate character, occasionally shooting off in unexpected directions (Tiny Alien). Focused ballads I’d Love To Kill You and, in particular, the elegant, tender Red Balloons stand out. The latter was co-written with quirky left-field singer-songwriter Polly Scattergood and is remarkable enough to suggest the 25-year-old Melua might do well to cut her ties with middle-aged male veterans altogether. At least by taking the reigns as chief songwriter and exerting control over her own musical identity, The House feels as if Melua is finally justifying her artistic existence....full text |
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