05 Sep 2017 // A review by Paul Goddard
I have been struggling to write this review. Much like I have been struggling to put my thoughts together around this gig by one of NZ's most successful and respected artists.

There is no denying Kimbra's talent and also her drive. Anyone who has seen the footage of her as an 11-year-old taking on the recording studio and talking about how she wants to be a pop star will see that Kimbra has worked hard at this game for a long time and she is still only 27 years old.

She has a mixed and eclectic taste in music and is just as happy moshing to Messugah as she is tripping out to Flying Lotus. She also has an amazing voice, a sense of fashion and performance so with all this talent and drive what is a Kimbra show like in 2017?

To be fair I can't judge tonight as a proper Kimbra show, well not from an audience perspective anyway as this is an iHeart radio event so all tickets were issued to competition winners, industry people and chancers like me which result in a mixed crowd with many people just along for the 'free' ride.

I really wanted to be blown away as even though the music Kimbra makes isn't what I would usually connect with, I do like what I have heard and I love her slightly left-field approach to the pop genre. There is a dark side and melancholy to some of her songs. Kimbra is no Katy Perry, thank god, and at times tonight, she did blow me away especially with tracks like Top Of The World and Sweet Relief.

Through parts of the set her voice appeared lost in the bombast of the songs and the trippy visuals on the three screens behind her, there is so much going on in the song structure that sometimes it is hard to connect. It's impressive, it's different but it doesn't make me feel anything. Most of the time the audience isn't dancing just swaying and it is a strange trippy low buzz kind of vibe.

I would love to hear and see some of these songs stripped back, almost acoustic. At times I try to block out some of the electronica and just listen to her voice, the words, the performance and in those moments I get a glimpse of how talented Kimbra is.

The set is fairly short and all over by 9pm, the light show impressive, Kimbra looks great in a funky jump suit and also clearly happy to be back in NZ for a while. Kimbra is one of the most talented musicians to come from NZ in recent years and she showed why tonight with a polished and professional performance. It was just a little hit and miss for me.

New Zealand-born pop star and two-time Grammy Award winning tour de force Kimbra is readying her fourth studio album, A Reckoning, produced in tandem with Son Lux’s Ryan Lott.

This is just the latest chapter in a series of Kimbra’s overall career success: the experimental pop performer’s 2011 debut, Vows, bowed at No. 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and was certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand. She received Best Female Artist two years in a row at the ARIA Music Awards and took home 5 New Zealand Tui Awards including Album of The Year in 2012. That same year, she exploded into the public consciousness with Somebody That I Used To Know, a duet with Gotye that earned her two Grammy Awards for 'Record of the Year' and 'Best Pop Duo/Group Performance', as well as reaching No. 1 on global charts (across 18 countries) and selling more than 13 million copies.

Her 2014 sophomore record, The Golden Echo, highlighted her eclectic style with a diverse set of collaborations from Thundercat, Omar-Rodriguez Lopez of The Mars Volta, Bilal, and John Legend. Likewise, her third LP, 2018’s Primal Heart, saw her touring with the likes of Beck, Odesza and David Byrne. Kimbra has performed on TV shows such as Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Last Call with Carson Daly, Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Seth Meyers, as well as performing at festivals such as Coachella, Austin City Limits and more.

Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Kimbra

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