Sia Furler has some notable achievements to her name. She is one of the main vocalists for the influential trip-hop group Zero 7, her music was prominently featured on 'Six Feet Under' and most impressive of all, she manages to stay respectable despite being separated by only one generation from her uncle, Men At Work frontman Colin Hay. In spite of these accomplishments, her solo album Colour The Small One, which came out in the UK, Europe and her native Australia in 2004 and is just now being released stateside, is a tedious exercise in trite pop and frivolous singing.
The fatal flaw of Colour The Small One is Sia's voice, which comes across as being superficial at best and irritating at worst. Unlike her recordings with Zero 7, in which her rather simple voice complimented Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker's clean, precise music well, Sia attempts to stretch her singing to places beyond her ability. In an effort to produce emotions like a Fiona Apple or Nelly Furtado, Sia ends up sounding more like a girl in high school musical theatre who cannot take a hint that she is not good enough for the lead. Of course, there is no lead but Sia on this album, and the result is not enjoyable to listen to.
A perfect example of Sia's disingenuous emotional expression comes at the beginning of 'Breathe Me,' the track used in the final episode of 'Six Feet Under.' As a somber, serious piano plays, a bizarre air-like noise is heard, which might prompt listeners to wonder if a strong gust of wind has just picked up around them. It takes a moment to realize that it is actually the sound of Sia's melodramatic breathing. The sound does not inspire a moving response as much as an image of her smothering the microphone with a theatrical exhale.
On only one song, the appropriately flippant 'Sunday,' does her voice seem to match what she wants it to do. The rest of the time, much of Sia's singing sounds too much like she is trying, rather than feeling. The talent of some other singers such as Apple or Beth Gibbons of Portishead is that they can elicit truly stirring emotions without the listener worrying about whether they actually felt them. Sia's seam-showing artificiality makes her the musical equivalent of a bad actress. Worse, on some tracks she ends up sounding simply derivative. In particular, 'Sweet Potato' is a horrible Furtado imitation, down to the warbling 'o' sounds and directionless vinyl scratching. Similarly, 'The Church of What's Happening Now' is the most enjoyable song on the album, probably because it sounds very similar to Portishead's 'Glory Box.'
The album is the worst, though, when Sia tries to sound happy and innocent, particularly on 'Butterflies,' when she repeats the slightly-less-than-profound chorus of 'Yes the butterflies are still there / Oh yes the butterflies are still there' over and over, pronouncing 'butterflies' like a three-year-old who just learned the word. It builds to the annoying final line, ''Cause we came from the same cocoon.' After listening to Colour The Small One, listeners might wish Sia never came out of it.
