Not long after I began listening to Grown Unknown, I wish I would have been able to catch Lia Ices‘ set at the Tomorrow Never Knows festival. In a word, this album is gorgeous. Album opener, “Love Is Won”, starts as an already lovely tune but ascends to a new level with Ices’s hypnotic cooing. Her voice is similar to that of Björk but with a soothing quality. “Daphne,” resembles an unlikely collaboration between Sarah McLachlan and Amanda Palmer and is a triumph. Ices, like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, is an artist with a great affinity and attachment to her piano and it serves her well. The album as a whole has fantastic instrumentation and depth with Ices’ piano accompanied by a generous helping of strings with some guitar. It is the addition of more layers which shows the progression from Ices’ debut, Necima. The songwriting style is much the same but there is a fuller, deeper sound that fits the emotionally charged tracks. By the time the excellent closing two tracks, “Lilac,” and “New Myth” are over, I felt like I really went through something. The Grown Unknown experience is a very good sophomore effort that glows warm. So bask in it.
