EP Review: Lena Hessels – 'then when will it'
‘then when will it’ is the second of a series of EP’s from Lena Hessels, produced with Tender Blom, guitarist of Dutch indie-pop outfit Pip Blom.
With three of the four tracks previously released as singles, the EP will offer no big surprises to fans of Hessels but to newcomers, there is an opportunity to get a good grounding in her sound, what I’ll tentatively describe here as melancholy-lite.
Fast Lights is the most accomplished song of the record and is a strong single. Fans of Lorde will gravitate towards this one and it has all the components for a big hit; it’s a song to sing along to, one for the road-trip playlist.
Hessels is following in the footsteps not just of Lorde but St. Vincent and Regina Spektor in this record. The songs, which could otherwise be sugary, momentary pop songs are instead given weight with lyrics which are honest and speak to her real-life experience of mental health struggles and relationship issues. The EP as a whole is a sweet intro into her style, sure to attract fans which gravitate to diary-like songwriting that prides the beauty in mundanity over the ephemerality of the spectacular.This way of working and writing is especially apparent in ‘Rigastraat 2 106’. Hessels gently thumbs a simple piano melody as she weaves through singing to humming, to conversation with her dad, who is doing the washing up in the background. There is a sense of homely familiarity, a cosiness and vulnerability, a sense that – of her own admission in the song – ‘she is still working things out’.
‘6’ is the most interesting track on the record and is the only one not currently released as a separate single. It is also the track that Lena feels most closely to which could be no coincidence that it is the most arresting of the four tracks. She tells us, ‘The focus track 6 is about my mental health during a period when I wasn’t doing very well and how I got better. I feel like that time is always going to be a part of me but that’s ok because things will always get better’. There is a glimpse here of the sincerity that makes others like her so successful. The miss-steps and mistakes, the first-draft feeling of this EP is all part of it. She admits ‘there are no frills’ to her music, and in scene awash with Big Feeling, it is refreshing to listen to something simple, honest, and undone.
Words by Kathryn Blake
