The very last review I wrote before breaking for Christmas last year was See Night’s fabulously titled single, “Being Good Is Supposed to be Easy,” and it is fair to say that as an eleventh-hour contender for single of the year, it was certainly favorably positioned on the shortlist. Here it is again acting as the opening salvo of her latest album, Just Another Life and doing an excellent job.
As a taste of what is to follow, it is perfectly placed, offering a hint of the mercurial and marvelous blends of shoegaze and indie, dream pop, and psych-rock to come.
There is, of course, a fantastic range of dynamics at work within that broad generic spectrum, “LA Traffic,” for example, being built as much of space as it is raw guitar work, space that allows string-sounding sonics to rise to the surface and strange atmospherics to drift around. “Just Another Life” itself runs on a sort of ethereal-reggae groove. The brilliantly delicate, wonderfully emotive “Sober & High” is what you might have ended up with if Mozart had, rather than being the product of mid-18th century Vienna, built his reputation playing in a shoegaze band from the Thames Valley in the 1990s.
There is even room for a couple of Piano pieces encapsulating the essence of morning and night, respectively – ornate, orchestral, and awesome – and “NYC Coats” rounds things off with a gentle, emotive, and wonderfully vulnerable-sounding vocal.
“Being Good Is Supposed to Be Easy” started us down a path that always promised to be rewarding and unique, but even that gem didn’t prepare me for how excellent this album is. Please give it a spin (and then a purchase) and tell me I’m wrong!
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