The Art Of Losing
by The Anchoress

From Mercury 04/07/2021 19:54 | #268295

(While having its moments of intense, intimate beauty, this album also did leave me unmoved for long stretches. Although the piano-heavy art pop and art rock and chamber pop here is quite heady and admirably composed, it never rose above quite nice in my opinion.)

After a few listens I feel like I just don't vibe with this album as much as I would expect myself to based off the individual parts. The one glaring thing that honestly just grated on me a bit was her voice - it has a certain theatrical, somewhat gothic, melodramatic showyness to it that I am generally not a fan of in almost any artist. That same sort of moody, self-serious, affect of gloom and tension. I don't like it in Nick Drake's music, PJ Harvey's, Fiona Apple's, anyone. I think that element is the one MAJOR drawback to this sound.

Outside of the vocals, the arrangements are heady, detailed and quite pretty. The lyrics are good, the strings sound good, the piano and the drums when they come in and turn the Art Pop into Art Rock for short burtsts they are also good and they pop. In many ways this is a pretty good and well written album. Yet, the vocals and the general flow of the album made me lose interest for long stretches.

Not much else to say. Musically this is good and even sometimes the vocals are alright. But a big enough portion of the album features her more quirky quasi-cabaret vocal delivery that I tend to not really vibe with this music or album.