I've only ever been a casual listener of Lykke Li's music, but with a title like, I Never Learn and the concept of a devastating breakup behind it, I was thoroughly intrigued. In fact, upon doing some discography research in preparation for this review, I actually found that I do enjoy Li's style and personality as well. Her style has seemingly become darker and more serious with each album, with her last two LP's centering around themes of youth.
However, I Never Learn is a pretty big departure from Li's last LP, and is entirely made up of ballads, or songs that go for heartbreaking and downtrodden moods. Take "No Rest For The Wicked" perhaps this LP's catchiest single and the only song on this album I could really see fitting in with material from her last album. This track is immediately enjoyable and has a killer melody, making it an easy highlight from this LP
Other moments like the gentle "Just Like A Dream" or the achingly sincere and desperate "Love Me Like I'm Not Made Of Stone" are noteworthy, and the latter is easily the best representation of the mood and sentiment of this album. However, there is a pretty big downside to this album, and that is that there are just as many great moments as there are passable ones. That's too bad because there are only nine tracks on INL, and that doesn't leave much room for error.
My least favorite moments on this album aren't necessarily bad songs, but they lack any real "oompf" or drive that makes some of the best tracks so great. For instance, I really didn't find the melodies on "Gunshot" or "Silver Line" to be all that memorable and that lead me to not want to give them multiple listens when I returned to this LP.
I wish that I liked more moments on this album because the moments I do enjoy are fantastic, and easily some of the best pop music I've heard all year. However, this LP falls short of being great do to some hazy production and lightweight melodies.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment