release date: Jun. 16, 2017
format: digital (12 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,60]
producer: Jennifer Decilveo
label: Sony Music - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1."Fire" - 2. "In and Out" - 3. "Fake Sugar" - 5. "We Could Run" (4 / 5) - 6. "Oo La La" - 8. "Oh My God" - 9. "Love in Real Life"
Full-length studio album debut by Beth Ditto (aka Mary Beth Patterson) following more than six years after her solo EP debut EP (Jan. 2011). Since then, she released A Joyful Noise (May 2012) with Gossip, and then around 2016 she publically announced than she would concentrate on her solo career and her clothing line - meaning we should not expect any new albums from Gossip.
Fake Sugar is a much expected release - her EP debut was released to fine reviews, and that showed us a new side to her talent, and then people just imagined a full album was on its way, but it took much longer than anyone had foreseen. Musically, this is not styled in her new-found territory of dance-pop or electropop, but more like something following a stylistic pattern in-between the 'final' 2012 Gossip album and her EP - at times she 'goes hard rocking Gossip', whereas other songs ("Do You Want Me To") are closer to the dance-pop / electropop of EP, but no matter what: the album is held together by Ditto's wonderful vocal. In this regard the album isn't a strong coherent product that show us where she goes from here, but then again: she doesn't have to choose one style over the other 'cause she basically demonstrates that her vocal simply fits whatever she explores.
Fake Sugar is something as unusual as a synthpop, hard rock, electropop, and indie pop all-in-one album showcasing Beth Ditto as one of the most charismatic voices of modern popular music. To me, she represents a similar vocal grandiosity as Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, and Mariska Veres did in their time. She simply hightens the musical quality and lifts what appears as ordinary songs to something with a lasting potential. She's no less than a natural force.
