Ella To Be Ella Chen As part of Taiwan’s popular girl group S.H.E, Ella Chen (right) has always been cast as the tomboyish one, partly because of her low, alto voice. In her new EP, she ditches that image for edgier looks. In the picture on the cover, she wears a fierce-looking deconstructed leather jacket studded with spikes. But unlike fellow group member Hebe Tien’s To Hebe (2010) and My Love (2011), Chen’s solo sojourn is decidedly less of a revelation music-wise. The material here includes the retro synth-pop of Bad Girl, the theme song for her romantic comedy of the same name, as well as Know Me Then Love Me, a romantic ballad by her and Tank. It is pretty much standard-issue stuff and nothing that would be out of place on a S.H.E record. The stronger ballad here is definitely You Have Been Written Into My Song with sodagreen frontman Wu Ching- feng, though this was already included in that band’s What Is Troubling You (2011) album. More interesting are the jazzy I Am Who I Am and the breezily adorable Thick-skinned. Chen composed the music and wrote the lyrics for both and one can imagine her serenading her husband-to-be, Malaysian marketing executive Alvin Lai, with the latter: “Thick-skinned, you always make me happy, thank you for loving me more than yourself.” The bonus disc comprises three Chen-composed tracks which includes 330, a birthday song for Tien, and Princess Selina, a sweet number written for Selina Jen, the third member of the trio who was hurt in an explosion accident in Oct 2010. They might all be releasing solo material but they all still get along swimmingly, which means that fans of the group need not worry about S.H.E splintering. While this is not an offering that will radically change one’s view of Chen, the EP does provide a promising glimpse of the Ella to be. (ST)