A Distorted Reality.

Rating:

Dual vocals? Check. Varied instrumentation? Check. At first, it may seem that Lydia are little more than ‘just another’ American indie/alternative band, but they do something different; something amazing even, yet I can’t put my finger on it. This December; It’s One More then I’m Free isn’t an album, it’s a musical journey, no doubts about that.

The opening track, Smile, You’ve Won, sets the album off to a roaring start. A soft piano intro turns slowly into a rock-y chorus with a delciate verse acting as an intermediary. As much as I love the first song, as soon as It’s in Your Blood starts, you realise how unpolished, how unrefined, how forced the brutality and inelegance of parts of Smile, You’ve Won are. As they say themselves, Lydia are very much a band for ambient music. The electric guitars of the opening track are replaced by acoustics with a most beautiful melody. The vocals also take a different tack, with elegance and delicacy being the watchwords for the style of delivery. It’s also here that you realise that Lydia’s lyrics aren’t so much lyrics, but much more short stories. Their style of the slow build-up in songs leading to an epic end is shown on this track also.

A Story for Supper is a more edgy song than It’s in Your Blood, and as a detailed account of an alcoholic girlfriend, this duality between the beauty of acoustic guitar lines and the viscerality of screams and electric, distorted guitar lines. This song is very much the best example of the mixed dynamics and varying timbre that are a staple of Lydia’s work.

Once again, beauty in songwriting becomes the prerogative in Always Move Fast. This tale of lovers running away from their ailments is complimented almost perfectly by the quiet accompaniment of a sole acoustic guitar.

The weakest track on the album is also, unfortunately, the middle track, Fools and Luxury. Lydia’s style of introduction and building up is ruined by the decision (most likely of the producers) to have the instruments and vocals fade in over a period of two minutes. It’s just so clichéd, and not what is expected from the previous 4 tracks. However, it is a very large compliment to the band that production is all I can find a fault with: the song still lives up to the standard of the previous songs on the album.

Laugh Before You Grin is another song of mixed dynamics and vocals that most only wish that they could replicate. Going from a quiet whisper to almost a scream; the talent of the vocalists is shown clearly.

When the Ghosts Make Love is little more than an instrumental track, but shows the musical abilities and ecleticism of the band.

Track #7, Her and Haley boasts the title of ‘longest track on the album’, at 7:38. This is mostly due to the very long introduction, mostly one of noise. However, when the song itself starts, there’s no turning back. It’s a journey in itself. Changing instrumentation, changing volumes; nothing stays the same. It’s epic; and that’s not a word I use lightly. You know how Death Cab’s Transatlanticism is a song of the same length, but is at the same time not long enough? This is another one of those songs. Amazing.

Now, the last two tracks. I’m not even going to write about them. I couldn’t do them justice. They are amazing, simple as. Words are inadequate to describe them. I would say ‘perfect’, but that is far too weak a word.

Yes, from what I have said, the album may seem like a formulaic mess of build-ups and changes in dynamics and tempo – probably an album with very little cohesion. That could not be further from the truth: the pull it off; and with a most unique style. Buy it, download it: I don’t care. Listening to it will change your views on music: it did mine.