On her new disc, she pushes her sound with harder, darker tones, but her vocals still sound more polite than impassioned, and she fails to convince that she's any different than before.
There's an energetic freshness to songs such as album opener "Fly," a midtempo number that finds Duff's voice soaring over a sinuous piano melody and loose, pattering beat, and "Weird," on which her vocals build from innocent to brassy over a catchy, Weezer-esque vocal harmony. But they feature neither the free-spirited zing of great bubblegum pop nor the maturity of a more nuanced sound.
Other songs seem to get in the way of themselves, like the ballad "Hide Away." In that simple melody, Duff initially sounds tender and natural but then gets swept up in orchestration that leaves her stridently emoting. "I Am" sounds more like a rhyming exercise than a statement of identity.
The songs that work are those that don't try to be more than they are, including "Underneath This Smile," a stripped-down rocker with an organic, Michelle Branch quality, thanks to loose guitar and the low, scratchy moodiness of Duff's voice. On "Dangerous to Know," her vocals build before bursting forth into a dramatic rock ballad, and on "Shine," which contains a looping vocal hook, her voice is clear and bright.
Although all teenagers undergo growing pains, it's hard to be sympathetic to those missteps backed by a highly conceived, produced, and market-researched musical machine. Based on her past success, Duff is clearly a poised, hard-working young woman with natural spark. Perhaps she'll be given the means to express those qualities better on her next birthday.
