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The album of the same name proved to be a wonderfully mercurial affair, a box of musical delights that wandered all over the musical landscape, filtering well-known sounds through the avant-garde and the adventurous. This titular opener proved to be a brilliant setter of tone for what was to follow sonically, but if any music deserved to be further expanded by a visual component, Grace McLean’s music in general, and this track in particular, is right at the top of the list.
And that is where we find ourselves, not just revisiting the namesake track from her last album but finding that world expanded and explored through an accompanying video.
“My Lovely Enemy” is a wonderful collection of jazzy jives and alt-pop-infused grooves, scat-leaning, Chasson styles and bustling dance beats, stabbing brass and sophisticated sonics. And if that seems like a contrasting and complimenting, compact and complex swirl of ideas, you wait until you see the video.
Images of duality – the black and white, good and evil, yin and yang sides of one person’s personality – are toyed with, and images seemingly related to murder and madness flit past the viewer. The lyrics suggest dark Lovecraftian pacts with death itself, a welcoming of the darkness beyond, but essentially, we come out none the wiser. (Although, that might just be me.) Perhaps it is not a video that gives answers but rather one that begs questions.
But then, musicians aren’t obliged to give us everything on a plate. They are not beholden to us to explain themselves or their art, and what Grace McLean offers us here is a horror-tinged tale with dark imagery, vague enough that you can read into the story what you will.
What is certain, however, is that in Grace McLean, and with My Lovely Enemy, we have found a singular, brilliant talent and an album that will beguile and enchant listeners for years to come.
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