Queen's Way
Queen Wei
With a cascading piano accompaniment and Taiwanese singer-songwriter Queen Wei’s tender and bright voice evoking the mystery and grandeur of nature, Wood is an opening breath of fresh air.
She sings: “The legends of the forest/Have been praised in song by us/The rights and wrongs of humankind/Are casually picked up by him”.
On her second solo album after Foolish (2008), the Season 2 alumna of singing competition One Million Star takes the less travelled path, though not as idiosyncratic as the one forged by her elder sister, Waa.
There is a definite sense of fun here. On the track O, she puns: “Oh oh oh oh oh, give me an ou (something random)”. And Bubble Dream bubbles up with a kind of quirky naivete when she sings in English for the chorus: “Oh my bubble dream/All the bad things have been washed away”.
Even when the material is more conventional, Wei’s pipes breathe life into ballads such as Forever and First Love. It suggests a compelling musical journey ahead whichever way she turns.
(ST)