Kimbonomics
Kimberley Chen
Just shy of turning 20, Taiwan-based Kimberley Chen has released the follow-up to her effervescent 2012 debut.
Then, she had managed to pull off the feat of being cute without being cutesy. She sounds more grown-up here but, thankfully, not too much.
After all, she is still a teenager and there is youthful vibrancy on the energetic Good Girl Hurry Up And Love and an endearing sweetness on Over The Moon: “Want to turn into a cat/Follow all your secrets/Hide in your embrace/Not go anywhere.”
Ballads such as Saying I Love You When We Break Up and Loneliness Howls take her in a more mainstream direction but the move never feels false – she still sounds distinctively like herself on them.
And that ability to leave her stamp on whatever she sings bodes well as she steps into her 20s – and on to the next stage of her music journey.
(ST)