You know what to expect with KT Tunstall, for even when she’s giving vent to the most extreme emotions, her music is as safe and reassuring as a well-worn sweater. Certainly she’s not a musician you’d credit with the capacity to shock. But that’s exactly what she’s done with her second studio album. Well, at least with the title: Drastic Fantastic may rhyme, but it is also so jaw-droppingly banal it beggars belief. Shocking!
That cardinal error notwithstanding, I endeavoured to listen without prejudice. And, despite my initial misgivings, Drastic Fantastic is a pleasant listen. Pleasant, mind you, not consciousness-expanding, earth-shattering or limb-invigorating. Rather – for the most part – these are songs that quietly rejoice in our follies (‘Funnyman’), fortitude (‘Hopeless’), and above all, our willingness to love (‘If Only’). In short, we're talking the perfect subject matter to keep the Tunstall bandwagon motoring, never straying too far from the middle of the road.
There is some exquisite guitar playing on show, and the choruses of ‘I Don’t Want You Now’ and ‘Saving My Face’ in particular are worthy of celebration. However, the exquisite ‘Beauty Of Uncertainty’ takes top-billing, Tunstall hitting a note of unadulterated authenticity, the guitar tender, the voice mournful. All told then, Drastic Fantastic might not astonish – but neither does it disappoint.