Laurel Hell Review

The context is a writer who had announced she was stopping, then found herself owing an album, and the ambivalence is baked into every track. The palette is bright: eighties synthesisers, gated drums, arpeggios, arrangements built for a large stage. The lyrics underneath are about exhaustion, obligation and being loved in a way that feels like a demand. That contrast works twice. The Only Heartbreaker is a genuinely great pop song about always being the one at fault.

Should've Been Me has real momentum. Working for the Knife opens the record with the clearest statement of the problem and the best line on it. After that the album sags noticeably. Several tracks are slow, static and underwritten, the synth sounds start to blur, and by the end it feels like a set of sketches given expensive clothes. Half a very good record and half a contractual obligation, and unusually for this writer, you can hear which half is which.