Sienna Spiro Is About to Become Your Next Pop Vocal Superhero: Review

For years now, there has been a lot of waiting, guessing and surely in-house prevaricating about who will be the next James Bond. But there is no need to dally, or shouldn’t be, on the question of who will record the next James Bond theme. It will be Sienna Spiro, the upstart British singer-songwriter who’s just starting to become known on both sides of the Atlantic for having one of the greatest voices of her generation. This Bond-song assertion is not based on insider information, or some silly predictors’ market. It’s based only on having just seen her and come away convinced that, by the time this decision gets made — at which point probably few people will be unaware of her lung power or star power — it will seem freaking insane to pick anyone else.

Are we putting the cart before the horse here? Of course, but it’s hard to help it after the impression Spiro made in her official U.S. headlining debut Monday night at the Troubadour. Mid-show, the 20-year-old singer premiered a new song, written just a month ago, that is presumably destined for her first full-length album, due some time this year. It’s called “Time You & Me,” and she had a very personal explanation for what the tune means to her, as she does for much of her material. But it sure sounded like an unofficial Bond audition song, and one suspects that she and her team could turn out more in that vein. You could say that it even sounds slightly like a sequel to “Skyfall,” but the real point here is that Spiro sounds like a sequel to Adele. Up-and-coming artists aren’t always happy about “sounds like…” comparisons being made to big stars that have preceded them, but maybe she can forgive this one. Or at least she’ll need to get used to it; it’s going to come up a lot.

The Troubadour has had its share of “a star is born” shows over the decades. It’s tempting to use language like that for Spiro’s appearance there Tuesday, but also too much of an exaggeration, because she’s had plenty of star-birthing moments in the past year, and Universal has not exactly been hiding her under a bushel. Following a series of viral favorites, her October song “Die on This Hill” went top 10 in the U.K. and top 20 in the U.S., so the word is out. There are paths of mowed-down trees left over from any time she’s done a knockout TV spot, like she did with Fallon in January. We can only tell you how it felt in the West Hollywood club this week, which was like we were having our own Robert-Hilburn-meets-Elton moment. If anything, the medium-sized hype that preceded her now seemed like underpromising in the service of overdelivering.

She did not come bearing a crown. Part of her appeal is that, even though her voice is commanding, there’s nothing particularly imperious about her personality, which borders on something like modesty. Spiro’s song introductions made it clear that she’s motivated to write songs by some deeply held anxieties, and not just about love. Introducing a new song that is due to come out this Friday, “The Visitor,” she explained that even though it might seem like it’s about feeling insecure in a love relationship, she’s been affected even more deeply by the ending of friendships, and has some obsession with impermanence in general. That’s kind of reassuring to hear from a troubadour of 20: that she didn’t spend her entire teenhood being romantically tortured (because there had to be some music education to squeeze in there, too), but is able to translate all of her feelings about interpersonal relationships — and healthy fears about the future — into smart torch songs that make her sound 40 going on 20. There are throwback elements to please nostalgists, to be sure, but it couldn’t feel less like pastiche, when the point of entry for her contemporaries will be how personally authentic it feels.

People will be analyzing her vocal style and range for years to come; one vocal teacher on YouTube describes her as having a “mixed belt,” which sounds about right here. What’s clear without getting into the technicality of it is that she spends enough time singing in the comfort of her low range that every time she goes up and out of that, it’s exhilarating. (And the exhilaration sticks when she comes back to earth.) That’s most evident in “Die on This Hill,” a song that will likely be her show-closer for a long time, given the extended peaks in the second half of the song that almost leave you too breathless to call for an encore anyway. (“Idol” judges may well get sick of hearing it as an audition song before all is said and done.)

For the kind of intrigue that results in stardom, it doesn’t hurt that Spiro doesn’t look like she sounds. You don’t imagine the alto-leaning part of her vocal greatness coming out of someone who has fashion-model looks and is currently styling herself closer to Twiggy or one of the Brit pop singers of the mid-‘60s than anyone contemporary. She knows how to rock a minidress, and also how to have them hand-printed for her. At the Troubadour, her skirt was specially made to show a 1960s vision of Hollywood that notably featured the Capitol Tower, possibly to put a smile on the face of all the Capitol execs who were showing up to see their new star in action. (When she played for the BBC recently, she showed up in a specially made Fab Four minidress.) There will be tutorials about her vocal style showing up on YouTube, but maybe just as many hair tutorials in the months to come; if you love th big hair of the 1960s, why have just one part in it when you can boldly have two?

One big question some may have is: Does she only do ballads? And if so, would that be a problem, or would we be fine with a completely banger-less singer as a superstar? Just over a year ago, she released her first EP, “Sink Now, Swim Later,” which was just long enough, at eight tracks, that you might suspect it was held back from becoming a proper album only because she wanted to keep it narrower for the moment than she planned too ultimately. That EP, and some one-off numbers that preceded or followed, stuck largely to a vocal-and-piano-only aesthetic. So it was almost a surprise to see a drum kit on stage prior to her entrance at the Troubadour. When the music did start, with only two band members in tow (and some occasional backing tracks), that drummer mostly used mallets, and stuck toward accents more than beats, to keep things to the hushed mode she’s known for. It was a beautiful place to stick around, for anyone without a bop addiction.

But Spiro has suggested that this may only be a temporary dwelling place, at least at this level of balladic minimalism. The most prominent departure in her 45-minute set was one of the other singles she’s put out in the last year, “Dream Police” (no, not the Cheap Trick song, but one just about equally cool). It’s a great indicator of how she can pick up the pace and the instrumentation without sacrificing the vibe she and her collaborators have so carefully cultivated. The aforementioned “Time You & Me” also found her tooking off in a brassier, if not Bassey-er, direction. She’s talked in interviews about wanting to incorporate hip-hop influences into her style; it would be a kick if those and her obvious jazz references somehow got bumped up all at once in the work to come.

It’s early days to start imagining what directions Spiro could go in. But it’s fun to think about anyway, because it feels like she’s likely to be entertaining us for decades to come, so why not form a picture of what that could look like, when she’s 22, 30 or 60? Personally, I’m torn: For the official debut album, I wouldn’t mind hearing at least five groove-based departures on the order of “Dream Police,” but on the other hand, it will seem a lot more revolutionary if she takes over the pop world almost solely on the basis of piano ballads. It’s a good thing it’s up to her, and that we win either way.

An aside: What are they putting in the water in the U.K. nowadays, that American and international fans could practically form a balanced musical diet just from the records being made by female British stars like Olivia Dean, Lily Allen, Dua Lipa, Lola Young, Little Simz, Raye and now Spiro, among others? Dean just claimed the Grammy for best new artist; once you’ve heard Spiro, it’s hard to think anything other than that is teed up to claim that in early 2027. Blame it on the afterglow of a great performance (and yes, we are only halfway through the Grammy eligibility period), but seeing front-runner status for Spiro right now is a hill I might be ready to die on.

And if the world fails to agree on her accolades? We’ll still always have that voice to die for.