Review: Miss FD – Comfort for the Desolate

Miss FD, the erstwhile Frightdoll, has been a Softsynth favourite since the very beginning. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen with a critical ear, but more it suggests that distinction is earned as the result of continued extraordinary work. A consummate DIY artist, she has perfected the art of blending goth, industrial, and melodic pop together in her highly stylish cauldron. That’s not an easy combination to pull off without drifting into cliché or parody, but pull it off she does. 

She doesn’t stake out a lot of new ground on this album so much as continue to hone and perfect her formula. But her songwriting is as strong as ever and she continues to output dark, but catchy, deep, but accessible songs, and the quality of her writing as well as her ever-stronger voice make the material feel fresh. The dancey (or as she says herself, “oontz”) side of the FD equation is on full display on this effort, more than ever before, so we are treated to “Lover of Fate” with its strong beats, but tempered with her patented spooky keyboard sounds and goth-like trappings. It’s a potent combination.

If there’s a complaint, its that’s it’s too short, as much long EP as short album. We want more. We hear a smart twinkly lyrically dark “The Grand Version” with its grand sweep, and we want more. We hear the bright poppy, and super-catchy “Waiting is Not Enough” which is cut with just enough of the dark to become something “other” that we want more. But that’s what she does. She whets the appetite and makes one yearn for more. To be this good but this sparing is teasing, it’s tantalizing and makes the listener anxious for more. Grateful for the fact she is as prolific as she is when she produced records this good.

Close your eyes, pop on the headphones and let this album enter your mind and it will take you on a weird, mind-bendy ride, one that’s pure pleasure, with just the right soupcon of pain administered as deserved/required.

Watch:….oh. No video yet for a Comfort for the Desolate song! Egads. Stay tuned, will add when one becomes available…