Katie Griffin · Kiss Me Chaos
(Interloper - 2003)

Katie Griffin is like this weird, unstoppable Renaissance woman. Already an accomplished screen actor (Up To Now, The Safety of Objects, Swindle) and voice-over artist (Sailor Moon, Braceface), the stunning Scarborough native has recently made the move to singer-songwriting.

And it’s working for her. Kiss Me Chaos is an effective, if not always deeply affecting, début. Its simple, catchy songs are given healthy pop/rock arrangements by Michael Kulas (of brit-pop heroes James), whose well-practiced hand guides some of the less successful numbers out of the fire. In its best pop moments (“Road Trip”, “Anyone Out There”, “Sometimes”), Kiss Me Chaos achieves a kind of radio-friendliness that is seldom approached by Canadian outfits, for better or worse.

But in an effort to push those pop buttons Griffin occasionally loses her voice, and begins to blend into the crowd. Fans of Natalie Imbruglia, Gwen Stefani, Madonna and Sarah McLachlan, for example, will all hear something (too much?) of their ‘sounds’ here. However, these kinds of comparisons are often inescapable, and especially so with a first record. Griffin is still finding her voice, her own sound- but it’s out there for her.

Mid-way through the record, with the intimate and revealing “Fearless”, there’s this wonderful moment when Griffin dares to speak in her own voice for a second or two. The idiom is natural, free- I mean, who in pop music writes like this? “I think it’s wicked how/ Your eyes sparkle when you speak/ Send shivers up my spine, Intoxicate and lose my mind/ And I think it’s wicked how/ The sun can change direction when you smile/ And it’s messing up my mouth/ And burning words that won’t come out”. A little more daring, a little less reliance on others’ established formulas, and a little more quirky personality shining through the lyrics and melodies- in other words, a little more of this- and Griffin could be the next big thing.
- Stuart Henderson

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