Don’t look now, but Forever is Fiona’s fourth solo album, making her one of the more consistent and prolific artists in the business. When you consider that Fiona is almost alone as a female lover’s rock singer who has never bragged about the power of her pum pum, and album #4 is all the more incredible.
The best way to describe Fiona, for better or worse, is as a female version of Sanchez: nice voice, love song singer, with a weakness for remaking R&B songs. Like Sanchez, Fiona sometimes wastes her talents on inferior material. Fiona’s voice is beautiful instrument, with range and richness and a breathy warmth that’s rare in Reggae music. It’s a shame that such a sweet voice is all to often squandered on vapid lyrics like “I’ll put a whip appeal on you/ baby drop a bomb on me/ and I will do the same to you.” No amount of ability can save lines like that.
Nevertheless, Fiona’s considerable talents do prevent much of Forever from drowning in saccharine Hallmark Greeting Card clichés. As a “set the mood” sort of album, Forever works well as background soundtrack to a romantic evening. There really aren’t any bad tracks on the album, and Fiona is so sweet that even kiss-off songs like “It’s Over” sound endearing.
Fiona ventures slightly beyond the lover’s rock script on “Hatred And Grudge,” and “Together,” which end up being two of the best tracks on the album. “Hatred And Grudge” burns a fire on the badmind and nonprogressive elements in society who help downpress the sufferer, to great effect. “Together” is a call for unity, either between lovers or among all people. It hints at the range of possibilities that lie beneath Fiona’s paint-by-numbers renditions of some of her love songs.
If Forever has a real problem, it’s that Fiona’s delivery sometimes creates a believability gap: you hear the lyrics, but Fiona doesn’t really make you believe them. She’s just singing words. But if anyone is going to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, you could do a lot worse than Fiona.
THE VERDICT: Fiona might pretend to be a sophisticated R&B chanteuse, but when she says “dreams come through” instead of “true,” you can almost hear the little country girl being scolded by her mother to pronounce the “th” in words like three and thief. It’s that vulnerability that makes Fiona worthwhile. It may be strange to say that a fourth album shows potential, but there is just enough here to make us believe that Fiona may evolve into a bona fide artist instead of a one-dimensional love song singer.
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