Album Review: Lizzy McAlpine - 'Angel'
Tears of happiness, grief, catharsis and heartbreak - feel it all with Lizzy McAlpine’s ‘Angel’.
Sad-girl-in-love autumn has well and truly begun. Set to break hearts and remind everyone what it means to really yearn, Lizzy McAlpine is back with album number 4, ‘Angel’. Written over two years of profound self discovery, it sees her confront her understanding of herself as a friend, a lover and an artist. From the hopeful intimacy of falling in love, the isolation of heartbreak and the unwavering endurance of friendship and community through distance and time, ‘Angel’ is the journey of McAlpine returning to herself.
Her most lyrically expansive and sonically ambitious body of work to date, this is Lizzy at her very best. Not one weak moment across 14 tracks, ‘Angel’ is a clear step up for Lizzie and her artistry. A rich tapestry of both classic and contemporary influences, it blends together everything from 70’s folk to 21st century indie, allowing for McAlpine to exist within a sonic landscape that is distinctly hers. It sees her reunite with collaborators Mason Stoops and Taylor Mackall as well as featuring songwriting credits from Nick Drake.
Lead single ‘The Light in The Painting’ was the first song written for the record and works to set the tone for the new era for Lizzy. She describes it as the ‘perfect introduction’ into the world that was created for ‘Angel’, seeking to capture the feelings of euphoria and wonder that arise from forging a new connection with someone. It works beautifully as the opening track of the album; listeners are ushered in by the gentle orchestration that accompanies Lizzy’s vocals. Much like her eyes in the opening line, it is impossible not to be drawn in. Anyone who has ever heard one of her songs will attest to Lizzy McAlpine’s ability to build and layer sound - the way she is able to create cinematic, sweeping landscapes with her songwriting is a big part of why so many have fallen in love with (and to) her music over the years. This track is no different. As all the different elements come to a crescendo in the bridge, your heart can’t help but swell in your chest. For a voice with a tone so fragile, vulnerable and gentle, Lizzy and her orchestrations pack a punch.
Aside from her ability to compose sweeping melodies and arrange harmonies and instrumentals that soar into the stratosphere, McAlpine is known for her lyricism. Honest, heartbreaking and somehow able to resonate with everyone who listens to them, she has truly honed her craft on ‘Angel’. For all the devastating lyrics on the album (of which there are too many to name), ‘Peach’ is in a league of its own.
‘We balance our lives together, you show me how to be better. I understand now that this is all there is. A peach. A moment to love myself better, the hardest season to weather. I understand now that it was all for this.’
Having become a part of the lexicon of pop culture through its many iterations and interpretations, McAlpine’s peach is a reflection of the self acceptance that only happens when you allow yourself to feel safe and comfortable in a connection. Encapsulating a sense of quiet peaceful tranquility, the peach is a love letter to the ordinary: the understanding that when you find the right person, it is enough to simply be.
One track will inevitably stand out, in no small part due to its whopping 7 minutes 23 seconds runtime. ‘Our Strange Ways’ could be interpreted as a song within a song; for the main section of the track McAlpine muses on the distance she feels from someone. She talks about songs, songs written for ‘you’. The insinuation is that this is someone she has ‘created’ with before - using the metaphor of songwriting and performance she explains the difficulty of having to sing alone having grown so used to having someone close. She questions that closeness, interrogating it and untangling it. The instrumentation is vast; strings, background vocals, synths, a rainstick all create this whirlwind of atmosphere that goes around in circles on the line ‘A World Without You’. And then it stops. And the ‘real’ song begins. The raw, unproduced, vulnerable song. The song written for ‘them’.
A personal favourite has to be ‘The Crowd’. Across the album, there are many gorgeous moments where, thanks to production orchestration and mixing Lizzy creates something grand and larger than life. On this track however, all of that melts away leaving just her and a piano. The foundations of it all and the reason I and no doubt countless others began listening to her in the first place. Possibly the most introspective and heartbreaking on ‘Angel’, this is a song not simply about loss but about what we choose to do with it.
‘Everything I do, I do so I can make you proud. Everything I do, I make it big so you can hear the crowd’
In spite of her grief, Lizzy promises to make her mark. The grandiosity, scale and beauty of the other tracks on the album pale in comparison to the deafening honesty and vulnerability that bleed from this one. With a song and nothing more, she can say everything she could ever need to.
Having already performed one secret show this month, there is no way of knowing what Lizzy will do once the album is released. Given how busy things have been with Tribeca earlier this year and the single drops over the last few months, no tour dates have been announced yet. That’s not to say that there isn’t something in the works - knowing her Lizzy will have surprises up her sleeve yet. Until then, she leaves listeners undoubtedly in their feelings and with a feeling of hope. In the same way she has found love, felt loss and understood the kind of person she wants to be, all that can be hoped for is that ‘Angels’ does the same for all those who listen to it.
Words by Kirsty-Ann Thomson
