Lizzy McAlpine – Older

Folk | Chamber Pop

60%

 

Maybe this is the writer in me speaking, but I feel like everyone has wanted to write a book at some point in their life. You have a vague outline for a story, a couple of major plot points and a character or two figured out. You can picture that big scene so vividly in your head, like it’s playing out on a movie screen in front of you. Sitting down to put text to a blank page, with a bit of luck, skill and trial & error, you’re able to capture your vision for that part of the story. Brilliant! Okay… where do we go next? You waffle on and pad out the next few pages, hoping to progress far enough along to get to the next big idea, but ultimately find yourself rapidly running out of things to say. Every attempt leads to the same realisation: no matter how compelling the rough sketch of your story may be, the real meat of a book lies in all of the lines nestled between the major plot beats. Capturing one or two bright sparks of inspiration is one thing, stringing them along to keep a continuous flame burning is quite another.

We see the same principle manifested in countless albums. A handful of beautifully realised hit singles, separated by filler tracks that just about get the job done, but somehow the magic isn’t quite there. Older isn’t one of those albums, yet its problems stem from the same root. Every track has at least a faint glimmer of greatness to it – a haunting piano melody, a line that grabs you, some grand expansive climax in the closing seconds. Most often that greatness is found in the wonderfully understated expressiveness of Lizzy McAlpine’s vocals. These seeds of brilliance are found everywhere you turn, yet frustratingly they never feel properly nurtured to their full potential. Instead of the record being split into hits and filler, most tracks are hits that have been trapped within the filler, unable to escape, like an insect in amber. Either that or they’re one of the handful of fleeting sub 3 minute tracks that seem half finished. 

It’s disheartening to see this record fail to flesh out its ideas, struggling to live up to its potential, especially with so many glimpses of what could have been. Lizzy’s dreamy vocals manage to bring such a gorgeous air of romanticism to the toxic relationship described in ‘Staying’, yet you’re snapped out of its spell before it could even fully take hold. The eerie waltz of ‘You Forced Me To’ is home to some superb harmonies, closing track ‘Vortex’ ends the record on a high with a lush expanse reminiscent of Wild Pink, while the brooding crescendo of ‘Broken Glass’ veers into Bond theme territory.

By far the record’s most memorable offering however is the breezy chamber pop of ‘All Falls Down’. Between the jazzy swagger of its charming woodwind arrangement, its understated groove, and the earworm refrain of ‘it all falls down on you at the same time‘, it makes for a refreshing spike in energy. Sadly such a rich and engaging arrangement makes the sparse piano balladry which makes up most of the album feel all the more austere by comparison. Without extra elements to flesh out the atmosphere, and with little of the spellbinding cinematic storytelling found in spades on her breakout hit ‘Ceilings’, these tracks all end up blurring together. 

I’ve listened to plenty of albums I’d consider “growers”. Whose charm requires several listens before it begins to truly unravel in the back of your mind. By that same metric Older is sadly a “shrinker”. While I’ve enjoyed having its elegance woven into the background of my days as of late, each time I try to focus in on the album’s inner workings I find frustratingly less of note than I expected to find. It reminds me of the kind of book you have a vague recollection of enjoying when you last read it, but when pressed you can’t seem to remember a single thing that happened in the story. In a few months I may feel a similar way about Older; “I think I liked it, but I don’t really remember anything that happened“.