Something More Than Love

Album review

Lera Lynn gradually left the exquisitely sculpted moodiness of her 2016 breakthrough Resistor behind, incorporating light and warmth on such subsequent records as On My Own. Some of this shift could be credited to her collaboration with Todd Lombardo, a multi-instrumentalist who entered Lynn's orbit on Plays Well with Others, a record released the same year as Kacey Musgraves' era-defining Golden Hour, which also featured Lombardo. While Lynn's 2022 album Something More Than Love doesn't precisely sound like Musgraves, its bright, shape-shifting surfaces belong to the same genre-bending spectrum as Golden Hour. That alone marks a monumental shift from the burnished, interior perspective of Resistor, but the openheartedness of Something More Than Love is underscored by how much the record was inspired by Lynn giving birth to a child fathered by Lombardo. Much of the album reckons with the emotional shockwaves that follow being a new parent, feelings that are often warm even if they're occasionally conflicted. It's here that it's possible to chart the journey Lynn has been on since Resistor. Where she used to dwell in the shadows, on Something More Than Love she's basking in daylight. Within that brightness, she finds plenty of different textures and sounds, creating music that's every bit as atmospheric as her earlier records but carrying an appealingly lighter vibe.
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