Accidentally In Love
Freya Lim

9ood Show
Show Lo

Influens
Da Mouth

Taiwan-born Malaysian Freya Lim’s fourth and comeback album, Holding Back The Tears (2010), was a grower and a keeper, and she was deservedly nominated for a Golden Melody Award for best female pop vocal performance.
Her gently emotive voice remains exquisite on this follow-up album, but Accidentally In Love lacks the ballad power hitters such as Wounded and Scared from her previous disc.
Still, there are pleasures to savour, as Lim offers an adult’s point of view on love and intimacy on tracks such as My Neurosis and Can I Be Happier.
In the song Rift, she probes the gap between what is observed and what is experienced: “In the eyes of outsiders, we are content and without flaws/You have done for me all that you can/That’s not what I want, do you understand”.
While Lim displays greater maturity in her work compared to her earlier albums, singer-host Show Lo continues to play with puns on his name.
Not that one minds when it is something like the campily fun Love Is A Show. The dance tracks also include Count On Me, which seems to hark back to the days of Hong Kong’s Grasshopper with its retro-sounding synth lines. And the duet with Rainie Yang on When The King Meets The Queen is easy on the ear as well.
But nine albums in, Lo should know that he really cannot handle ballads and he should stop trying. Skip numbers such as Love In Fantasy and save yourself the underwhelming experience of listening to him trying to emote.
Hip-hop quartet Da Mouth stick to their strengths on their follow-up to One Two Three (2010) and have come up with a corker of a fourth album, even though Japan-born vocalist Aisa’s pronunciation still isn’t quite perfect.
From the first track, Open Your Damn Mouth, to the late-in-the-album BaBOO, the party does not stop as the band dish out groovy hooks and propulsive beats.
And they can do tender as well, as they demonstrate on hip-hop number Sweetest Hug and hip lullaby Baby Gnite.
A hidden track, Play!, is no throwaway but a joyful dance ditty that keeps the after-party going.
Get ready to be infected.
(ST)