Big Picture

Album review

Kacey Musgraves has asked an important question in song: "Is there a word for the way that I'm feeling tonight?/ Happy and sad at the same time." Whatever that magical word is, it needs to be applied to the latest album from folky English songwriter Fenne Lily. On her third studio effort (and second on the consistently impressive Dead Oceans label), Lily nails that emotion over and over, sonically and lyrically. "You came to me at the speed of a bad decision/ Just the speed, the bad not so much," she sings on "Lights Light Up," her voice low and warm like a quality embrace. "We held each other/ While everything burned up 'round us/ And inside of me, too/ That's called love." She veers naturally between pragmatic acceptance and romance on the lovely "Map of Japan," singing, "We never could make a good plan/ Even when we weren't that busy/ I framed you a map of Japan/ If I ever go I'm taking you with me" alongside the contradiction/complement of impossibly deep bass and sunny-bright mellotron. Like Aimee Mann, Lily has a talent for singing in a style that's hushed yet conveys so much emotion. There's a particular Mann reflection on "Dawncolored Horse," which name-checks Ronnie Lane's "Roll on Babe" and lights up with twangy guitar and a little banjo. The song takes its name from a Richard Brautigan poem, which Lily has said she interprets as the feeling of wanting to be so close to a new love that you're "almost living inside them" before it becomes too much. (Indeed, Lily has revealed that these songs are the first she's ever written "about love in the present tense … and not thinking about the end," but added that, with "Lights Light Up," "there was something else going on subconsciously that led to a song about moving on before the moving on had begun.") She offers keen insight to the particular melancholy of air travel on "2+2"—"In-flight movies always make me cry/ Something about being in motion/ The earth below me is a reason why/ As much as any word being spoken"—and plays around with country-folk on jaunty "Pick." Christian Lee Hutson, a sort of musically spiritual twin to Lily, shows up on the Elliott Smith-esque "Half Finished" and contributes electric guitar, bass, piano and banjo to the extremely gentle jangle of "Red Deer Day." That song reveals the conclusion of her relationship—"For the longest time/ I've imagined I am alone/ And now it's real"—but assures: "Just because it hasn't gone to plan/ Doesn't mean it's gone to waste." Most impressive is "Superglued," a gently trembling lamb of a song with ghostly vocal doubling by Nashville singer-songwriter Katy Kirby. "When you met me I was all in black/ Now I have that sugar light/ I never wanna go back," Lily coolly sings, letting Joe Sherrin's guitar wail all the messy emotions for her. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz