Reviews

All Music Guide

Review of Drive

Original content sourced from All Music Guide

Source:         All Music Guide review © 1978-1999 College Media, Inc.

Website:      http://www.allmusic.com/

Bic Runga's Drive is an impressive first album on a number of counts: She not only wrote all the songs, but produced the record and plays most of the instruments as well.

Debuting at number one on the album charts in her native New Zealand, Drive established Runga as the country's biggest selling native female artist--ever. Not bad for a 22-year-old. Chock-full of melancholy ballads cloaked in Runga's luminous vocals, Drive is now aiming for the attentions of the rest of the world. On refreshing, delicate tracks such as "Bursting Through" and "Delight," sparse drum, strings and keyboard flourishes intensify the clear, intimate tone of her vocals.

Even on the stirring "Hey" and "Swim," where she erupts from Beth Orton sweetness to Alanis Morissette-like angst, the raw production keeps the songs' electronic atmospherics both dynamic and stark. While failed romances are her lyrical staple, Runga foregoes clichZs.

Instead, as on "Without You," breakups are detailed with pained understatement: "Walk around the bathroom and fill the sink/Wander 'round the kitchen and make a drink.../I've rearranged the magnets on my fridge/Without you now."

Drive is brooding pop at its most engaging. 

All Music Guide review © 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.