Ida Maria

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Ida Maria – “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked”

“I need some whiskey please / to bring me consciousness / and kill my innocence,” pleads native Norwegian singer Ida Maria in the opening lines of her single “Queen of the Night.” In this and most of the songs on her debut album, Fortress Round My Heart, it’s easy to picture her yelping the lyrics with a whiskey bottle in hand, its contents sloshing wildly around the bottle.

The album contains all of the raw and genuine feeling of an emotionally charged drunk dial to an ex. “Drive away my heart tonight / because it’s no longer mine” she implores in a throaty howl on the track “Drive Away My Heart.” On “Forgive Me,” which attacks a similar subject, she shouts ferociously to the point when, overcome by emotion, her voice cracks ever so slightly.

But it’s not all boozey tears for Ida Maria. She leaps through upbeat songs with the same unabashed vitality. She perfectly captures the nervous excitement of a new love affair on the peppy track “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked.” She admits to an anxious desire to impress her date on a romantic rendezvous that ends between the sheets.

On a similarly upbeat track titled “Louie,” the bouncing piano keys make the song sound utterly gleeful even though the song is a desperate plea to a friend to accept her reckless drinking and wild behavior.

Her music certainly reflects this lifestyle. On her current tour, she was forced to take two weeks off after some ill-advised onstage acrobatics left her bloodied, and unrestrained drinking put her on the verge of collapse. But Ida Maria refuses to be held back by injuries, fatigue or anything else. Her music is forceful, and her lyrics are unrepentant. Her zest for life, overwhelmingly apparent throughout the album, is remarkable. Like her whiskey, she drinks life up by the bottle, not the glass.

—By Entertainment Blog Editor Alex Blum