Album Reviews: Tove Lo, Kate Nash, Pond

Tove Lo & SG Lewis – Heat EP
Helsingborg, Sweden/Reading, England

Right on the heels of a recent collaboration with Nelly Furtado, Tove Lo returns with SG Lewis for a brief but exhilaratingly sweaty EP of dancefloor bangers. Riding a tight-yet-exciting line between honouring classic sounds and playing to her own strengths, Tove Lo makes a delightful mini collection of hits perfect for the club. “Heat” sets the record off with a mix of Rihanna, house, and infectious late 90s dance-pop intensity, overflowing with the usual raw sexual energy she infuses into most of her music. And the hooks never stop dripping off this one. While it flows with less overt passion in its bones, “Let Me Go OH OH” has this entranced, hazy affectation to the vocals and mix that suggests a subdued delight that elevates its more low-key energy. “Busy Girl” revels in its 90s homage, making a delightful earth-shaking, percussion-heavy celebration of boss energy and sensual power. There’s a mix of the joyous pastiche that groups like Confidence Man do, and a higher power on “Desire,” turning the feeling of love and passion into a primal and spiritual overload of feeling within its layered and heavenly production.

Romy Mounzer – Feel EP
Ottawa

Mixing in 80s production, with an unexpected reggae feel, “Feel” pushes through a message about embracing yourself and trying to let your cracks be what they are, instead of letting them define you. There’s an unusual duality to “Like a Snake” where it plays sultry and leans into a kind of early 2000s seductive pop pastiche, but always playing a little coy and wise to the game at hand. Swinging in like a late 90s Disney ballad, “Little Girl” delivers an empowering call to celebrate yourself and not shy away from what you do best, to realize the best you through never hiding. “Angel in Disguise” rounds the record out on a throwback full-blown vocal ballad, with Mounzer harmonizing and belting over her own voice to do a classic love song that’s sweet as sugar.

Kate Nash – 9 Sad Symphonies
Harrow, England

While her music has had to take a bit of a backseat in recent years for acting and enhancing her overall artistic scope, Kate Nash hasn’t lost the spark of creative excitement. In fact, on an album full of some of her densest arrangements yet, Nash seems fresh and full of the exact kind of lyrical quirk and beauty that made her so charming in the first place, but now with a newfound aura of grace in the mix to balance out some ideas and lend a fake politeness to others that will make you smirk. Between all the layers of strings and pianos, “Millions of Heartbeats” is a mesmerizing ballad calling back to Nash’s early work, while filling it out with a symphonic sweep that takes it higher than she’d hit in the past. “My Bile” rushes out with an immediate momentum that ramps ups with Nash’s frustration and sense of helplessness to the chaos and alternating pulls of life that will stretch you in every direction till you’re about to snap. The innate humor in immediately taking shots at “2001” on “2001 Space Odyssey” lets this fun narrative track whisk you away into its journey, one where many beautiful moments are underscored with darkness, almost to comic levels at times. There’s so much narrative fun and reflection on “Vampyre” about messy relationships and moving forward to meet again, that once you get to all the colourful lyricism that Nash dashes into this one, you’ll be dazzled several times over.

Jill Barber – Mal de Vivre (Single)
Port Credit, Ontario/Halifax, Nova Scotia

Playing on a Jacques Brel-esque delivery, Jill Barber truly evokes a classic tragic crooner on “Mal de Vivre.” Between the melodrama of every chorus and the near whispers into the sad quiet of the verses, creating a mystifying world of pain that drags you down, while touching your heart. The ebb and flow of the accordion and strings compliment this downbeat melody, until the emotion feels like a force of nature at times. Barber manages to rise and fall vocally with this feeling, warbling in the most desperate of moments and crying out with force in her strongest points. The whole mix elicits a devastating combination that will have you moved, but wanting to sit down and maybe smoke a cigarette to get over what you just heard.

Pond – Stung!
Perth, Australia

Often known for their more chaotic psych rock, Pond have reined things in just enough on their latest album to keep things exciting but not overwhelming. The outlandish energy of the band seems to be focused through to the magical aesthetics on “(I’m) Stung,” while the band seems more invigorated with pop than ever before, crafting a catchy tune that has the depth to keep you there. A bit of their older charms shine through on “Neon River” where they sway between pensive, floating dreamscapes and a riff-heavy classic rock stomper that goes galactic in its insane use of effects. Somewhere between Oingo Boingo and vintage funk pastiche, “So Lo” rides an atypical groove and creates a bizarrely effective dance track. Not to be missed however, the soft and meditative synth lines of “Elf Bar Blues” take you through the cosmos in a lo-fi cloud that evokes pink and 8bit visuals.