The six-year wait is over; now she is going to deliver after the anticipation has built. Having gone from indie darling to opening for Taylor Swift, things have changed since her last album. It is weird to think she is now playing arenas while making the kind of space-age folk that she opens this album with. It's delicate and surreal in equal measure. "Lost Boys" was the first song I heard from this album. It is a quaint pop song influenced by the crossroads where folk music and country music meet, but the production smooths out all the twang from it . Lyrically, it's pretty brilliant and one of the best mainstream songs to come out this year.
Not sure of the exact single cycle for this album, but it seems like "Kill Me " was next up as a single. The only reason it's relevant is that the singles are snapshots of the bigger picture of the audience she is seeking to provide a summary of who she is right now for. It is a rather atmospheric ballad. In many ways, the production of this album reminds me of Bon Iver. Another artist who shares a Taylor Swift connection. I think this is as ambent as she should get while still preserving the structural integrity of her songwriting. Anything less tangible is going to float off. Though this song finds a dynamic that hooks it in as it builds by the end.
If you were going to weigh this against another pop album like Charli XCX, it would be hard to even compare them as this is so atmospheric and abstract in comparison.It works off emotionally fragile melodies rather than beats and hooks. Some of these moments could stand to have more of a pop backbone, but I am trying to appreciate it for what it is. "Bobby" does offer more to sink your ears into and brings a great deal of what she learned in Boygenius to the table. The drums are more present and give a rock layer to things. It is a very lush arrangement.
She is the lighter side of the spectrum, with Ethel Cain on the more experimental other side. Here is wistful hope in the introspection conveyed on a song like the title track. Things do take an odd turn on this song, almsot like "Hounds of Love" era Kate Bush. "Haunted" crosses all the way over into country music. There is a more surreal transition from this on "Panorama," which is a more experimental soundscape interlude than an actual song, until two minutes in, when her vocals come in.
"Still Standing" has a more delicate vocal. That finds her at just above a whisper and close up on the mic. There is not as much to hook you in as it ebbs and flows, though the vocal melody is strong and honest enough to hold it together. There are 16 songs on this album, so nothing really sprawls out, which plays to her benefit as less is more in that regard with the pop-tinged nature of what she does. Her more indie folk side comes back to life on "Liberty Tree' which has country flirtations. This continues on for "Never Going Back" which, for her, does not feel likes he fully fleshed out the song but was working off an idea.
The ghost of a vocal melody floats more than it possesses the kind of form or function that would make it a song. Her vocals remain hushed on "I Can't Wait" but still hold the song together. She sings about being California sober. Cameron Winter from Geese lends his voice to the song.ON "As Above' she proves she can make a ballad dynamic and not jsut whispered ambiance. I will give this album a 9.5; it finds her drifting into experimentation, but she writes enough solid songs to balance this out.
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