Today's Sounds - Cult MTL

Record:

Lianne La Havas, Is Your Love Big Enough? (Nonesuch)

British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas has a strong voice. Not just vocally, though her familiar R&B-esque inflections have the right amount of muscle. It’s her penmanship that stands out — her willingness to put her vulnerability on paper and construct her verses and choruses for optimal impact.

That said, she rarely hits you in the face with bold statements. It’s impressive, especially for a 22-year-old, that she’s as restrained as she is, both sonically and lyrically. Her subtlety isn’t consistent, however, and sometimes it’s reduced to a joke (as in the great album opener “Don’t Wake Me Up”: “They say some things are better left unsaid / but I’d take my life to stay in your bed”).

The refined arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano, drums and percussion are perfectly tuned to her words, which are pretty melancholy and dark for this genre. One moment, she’s talking about ice cream/I scream on 2nd Avenue in an upbeat chorus bolstered by layers of back-up vocals, and the next, she’s softly moaning at a mate who made her hate herself, over plaintive piano dusted with reverb. You won’t hear this on Virgin Radio.

As sad and grim as her narratives can get, her voice, melodies and music are always lovely, whether pop song, uptempo R&B tune, ballad or quasi-folk ditty. The single “Forget” has more bite than most of the other tracks here, but it’s beautifully integrated amid songs that simply lounge in their meditative funk. The record’s cohesion must be partly due to the work of producer Matt Hales (aka Aqualung). It’s an impressive package, one we’ll be hearing more about come awards season.

Track:

Muse, “Unsustainable”

Do you like symphonic window dressing? Industrial accidents? Fake news reports about the potentially all-too-real end of the human race? Listen to already-over-the-top Brits Muse take a hilarious nosedive into dubstep, and contemplate what the Kanye West/Skrillex collab will sound like. Or just kill yourself.