Celeste Lear

“Looking up from underwater” Björk, Moloko, Goldfrapp…they all spring to mind with the opening bars of Ms Lear’s CD, “Looking Up From Underwater”. In fact, a lot of things spring to mind as the cd wears on. For example: · Track 2 – weak lyrics · Track 3 – early-90s drum&bass feel summer · Tracks 4 & 5 – more early 90s reminiscence · Track 6 - moving on – feels like the sound track to Romeo & Juliet. · Track 7 - Siobhán Donaghy soundalike · Track 8 – All About Eve · Track 9 – celtic Moloko · More 90s, more Björk derivation… And so on and so on. Ms Lear has a grand strong voice and can write a tune but my problem with this album is that it all seems to sound like someone/something else. There appears to be a great effort at originality here but it ends up being someone else’s sound. Pity.