I don’t remember if I personally first heard Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ in 2014 or 2015, but whenever it was I was immediately hooked. The album, 1000 Forms of Fear spent significant time in rotation on my music listening device throughout the first half of 2015 and on into the late summer early fall. Now, the recently released follow-up, This is Acting, is picking up right where its predecessor left off.

I love this description of Sia’s sound and style from Carrie Battan’s recent review in The New Yorker:

Which is not to say that Sia’s music feels anonymous. She is one of the most distinctive and acrobatic vocal performers working today, her high-register rasp instantly recognizable. Her songs sit somewhere between balladry and modern dance-pop. Everything is in service of a larger-than-life chorus, each song a vehicle for anthemic catharsis. She is wiser and more world-weary than the girlish Katy Perry, more impassioned than the ice-cool Rihanna, more demure than the slinky Beyoncé. Sia is a balladeer at heart, and she is at her best when she uses her voice as her primary tool.

If you give the new album a spin, check out the first single ‘Alive’, as well as ‘Reaper’, ‘House on Fire’, and ‘Footprints’.