The acclaimed Welsh artist returns with her distinctive vocal and highly influential, rich, warm, strange, otherworldly, experimental sound - woozy, dreamy, pedal-effect saxophones, guitars and more on bittersweet, superb album that evolved this way to to an all-consuming private heartbreak. Such personal tragedies are often the source of great art. Love, then, is a painful subject, but one that is emotionally examined here. Stylistically then, it’s the continuation of the sound on last two albums 2019s Reward and 2022s Pompeii, with some echoes of her influences – David Bowie, Nico, John McGeoch and Laurie Anderson – and that deliciously Greta Garbo-doleful low range and high purity to her her unique voice. The album is a beautiful expression of darkness and the viscerality of life, of love, of humanity for both listener and artist. As she puts it: “Michelangelo Dying knows what it is to hold, to be held, and to be exquisitely, profoundly alone. The characters are interchangeable but at the end of it all, its me meeting myself.” In a riverbed of gorgeously rich sounds and textures, among most powerful songs are Is It Worth It (Happy Birthday)? in which short, gnomic lyrical lines speak volumes of unspoken intensity: “Make a joke of love / And of living / Is it worth it? / Is it worth it? / Happy birthday to you/ I thought about your mother / I hope she knew / I loved her.” About Time has gorgeous, echoing, watery, distorted guitars, slightly reminiscent of Cocteau Twins, and is filled with further, potent, condensed, half-told stories: “Real dream embraced / I'm not lyingIn a bed / You made / Who gets to make her a dress / And then pretend it doesn't matter,” and there’s more with the infusion of distorted saxophone on Heaven Is No Feeling: “What now? The night? It all ends / And you smoke our love / And you smoke it in silence / And it takes more time than you'd ever give up / Don't you want more love than you've ever dreamed of.” The entire album bathes in a bittersweet loss, from Jerome to Love Unrehearsed, Body As A River, Ride (with John Cale on backing vocals), and the closer I Know What’s Nice - “I'm leaving someone I love / I can't breathe for someone I love / I can't breakdown.” Exquisite pain expressed with originality, purity and perfection. Out on Mexican Summer.
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