Pitchfork

On paper, a Dani Siciliano solo album looks engaging. The partnership she's had with Matthew Herbert since his 1998 record Around the House has resulted in some of the finest work in his sizable catalog; she's got an appealing voice, a unique sense of phrasing, and instrumental and production skills. That Herbert chips in on her solo records, adding production and instrumental bits, would seem to make them even more of a sure thing.

During its best moments, Siciliano's 2004 solo album Likes... delivered on the promise. The lengthy opener "Same" was an effective mood piece, taking some of Herbert's experiments in organic sampling and stasis into seductive territory. And the "Come as You Are" cover, while not revelatory, reinforced the notion that Cobain's magic wasn't all in the delivery, that he had songwriting chops that could survive genre interpolation. Siciliano heard a lot in his original and did a nice job describing just what.

Likes... had its share of dull patches, though. Siciliano's style can seem so assured that the music comes over as effortless in the wrong way, causing well-crafted tracks to sound a touch bland. This sense of controlled proficiency colors more deeply her second record Slappers. "Didn't Anybody Tell You" and "Why Can't I Make You High" are bulging with fun little noises, all manner of squeaks and cut-up instruments, and both have decent chorus hooks. She even invests a bit of upper-chest groan in "Why Can't I Make You High", setting aside her usual remove to belt like a blues shouter (relatively speaking), letting the acoustic guitar and standup bass bring her into a musical world that references western swing. But the music on these seems fussy, labored over, and ultimately flat. Better hooks would help, but that's only part of the problem.

Siciliano needs some hurdles to step over for her skills to reveal themselves, and the best tracks here have a few. "Think Twice" is tense and jittery, with tiny noises poking at the melody from every angle, threatening to push it off course, and Siciliano sounds strong and assured as she keeps it flying straight. The repeating vocal fragments of "Repeats" introduce a little pocket symphony of layered voices, mixed at times with Siciliano's clarinet, which is powerful and more dynamic than anything else here. And "Be My Producer" (one of the tracks Siciliano produced on her own; Herbert lends a hand here and there) crafts a clever electro-scat rhythm from tiny packets of voice. These and a couple of other tracks stand up to multiple listens, and the album as a whole is moderately enjoyable while it's on, but that's about it. Siciliano is a talent, certainly, but the breakout solo record still eludes her.