Maybe it'll reveal more layers over time, but so far Close Your Eyes strikes me as nice but inessential - not up to the same high standards of Belle and Birds, though part of that might be the way that my expectations have been raised by Runga's progression from record to record to date.
Of the 12 songs on the album, 10 are covers, including some that are very familiar to me; it's nice to discover, for example, that Runga's a fan of Neil Young ("Only Love Can Break Your Heart"), Love ("Andmoreagain"), Francoise Hardy ("Viens") and Nick Drake ("Things Behind The Sun" - this one sparks a bit). She covers a bit of stylistic ground in her renditions, including a bit surprisingly successfully with a tightly, urgently funky piece called "Tinsel Town in the Rain" (originally by the Blue Nile), and on a dream pop-hued "The Lonely Sea" (Beach Boys). But the best is maybe the simplest: a mid-tempo but otherwise quite faithfully throbbing, spaciously pretty take on Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face".
Of the 12 songs on the album, 10 are covers, including some that are very familiar to me; it's nice to discover, for example, that Runga's a fan of Neil Young ("Only Love Can Break Your Heart"), Love ("Andmoreagain"), Francoise Hardy ("Viens") and Nick Drake ("Things Behind The Sun" - this one sparks a bit). She covers a bit of stylistic ground in her renditions, including a bit surprisingly successfully with a tightly, urgently funky piece called "Tinsel Town in the Rain" (originally by the Blue Nile), and on a dream pop-hued "The Lonely Sea" (Beach Boys). But the best is maybe the simplest: a mid-tempo but otherwise quite faithfully throbbing, spaciously pretty take on Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face".
