NLX is perfectly capable of breaking hearts with just piano and voice, as she does here on the cut Silence, but she's also brimming with ideas, all packed into her latest. A banjo plays in the distance, a music box winds down, dissolving into a street-tough theme, in Haymaker. Layers and layers of soft magic are unveiled as each track progresses, from clouds of electronic gloss to various keyboard textures to real strings.
All that melodic inventiveness is important, because she has a pretty intense journey to take us on. It's a series of songs about making mistakes and getting through it, learning, and embracing them, being able to appreciate having the luxury of failure. Whether its relationships, or any other experience, it's all life. Lessons learned, then.
The key track is Little Victories, which takes it all back to baby steps: "First you learn to crawl, then you stand up tall, and even if you fall, you start again." No wonder the album is so beautiful; strength and beauty are always connected.
No comments:
Post a Comment