Loz KeyStone – To Feel Love

Electronica | Synthpop | Alternative

68%

To Feel Love was created during a period of great loss. Written during the final weeks of his father’s life following a battle with cancer, and recorded during the understandably off-the-rails period that followed, Loz’s debut album is a deeply personal record. It’s important to keep this in mind as it is the fabric that holds the album together. The vocals barely more than a whisper, the synths wandering aimlessly through an expansive desert, the odd flashes here and there of chaotic instrumentation. To the outsider this must seem a harsh and foreign musical landscape, but in reality every aspect makes perfect sense. To Feel Love captures the futility and frustration at watching someone slip away, and the aimless spiralling emptiness that comes with the aftermath.

Needless to say this is not the most inviting of records, listening to it feels like an intrusion of sorts. Likewise the personal nature of the album makes it difficult to really criticise. You can call it bleak, or messy, or meandering, but if it were anything different then it would kind of defeat the point. The album’s flaws are just as important as it’s strengths, as it shows the world to be a harsh place and each of us to be flawed inhabitants upon it. One critique I can’t avoid however is that such a thought-provoking piece of music deserves a more interesting and eye-catching cover. This album certainly isn’t for everyone, but when you take the time to understand it you can’t help but appreciate it as both an artistic piece and the cathartic release of thoughts from a tempestuous mind.