- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Lia Ices
Album: Grown Unknown
Label: Jagjaguwar
Playtime: 38:45 min
Genre: Indie
URL:
Rip date: 2011-02-22
Street date: 2011-01-25
Size: 47.68 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 162 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
News
* CMJ: Thursday [Sun Airway, Lia Ices, Suuns]
* New Releases: Lia Ices: Grown Unknown
Album Review
Grown Unknown
Lia Ices
Grown Unknown
[Jagjaguwar; 2011]
7.2
Find it at: Insound Vinyl | eMusic | Amazon MP3 & CD
It's been more than two years since Brooklyn singer-songwriter Lia Ices let
her debut record, the frail Necima, slip quietly into the world. She's
stepped up a notch or two since, inking a deal with indie-rock behemoths
Jagjaguwar and recruiting Justin Vernon to provide a guest vocal turn on this
album's second track, "Daphne". There's also a more pliable approach this
time around, with Ices subtly contorting her core sound, taciturn balladry,
to fold in meatier bursts of guitar and percussion. The key asset on Grown
Unknown is her impressively supple voice, which can spiral up into a giddy
falsetto and fall crashing to the floor in dolorous rumination within a
heartbeat-- although it's occasionally hampered by the uneven backing that
Ices latches onto her vocal hankering.
The salient difference between this album and the last is bound up in that
vocal zigzagging, which sounds less stiff and more relaxed than before, with
Ices mostly eschewing the Tori Amos/Joanna Newsom territory of her earlier
recordings for a distinct tone of her own. The instrumentation ticks over at
a funeral-paced cadence throughout, but Grown Unknown never settles into a
distinct pattern otherwise, often making great stylistic leaps within single
songs.
When Ices indulges her avant leanings, the material provides a more suitable
foil for her voice. A mixture of finger snaps, glinting piano, and subdued
organ provides a suitably artful backbone over which she hangs a touchingly
forlorn vocal turn on "Little Marriage", and there's a deft marrying of
chamber music sadness and welts of distorted guitar on "Bag of Wind". But
it's the standout title track that provides the most successful conduit for
Ices' eclectic whims, with a militaristic handclap and acoustic picking
alongside feather-light string parts. Here Ices sounds relaxed, locating a
natural meeting point for her disparate sounds and easing into a vocal that
effortlessly intertwines with the arrangement.
Elsewhere, the album continues in its asymmetrical way, rarely gelling as a
whole but intermittently spilling over with intriguing embellishments. A few
tracks strain under the weight of their own influences-- "After Is Always
Before" could be a female-fronted Grizzly Bear circa Yellow House, while "Ice
Wine" veers closely to a Cat Power vocal performance. "Lilac" heralds a
possible way forward, beginning with the kind of deathly muted backing
reminiscent of Mark Hollis' lone solo venture outside of Talk Talk, then
emerging into the half-light with a slow-burn patter of drums. That kind of
less-is-more approach, where all the clutter is shaved down to a paper-thin
framework, is where Ices produces her most affecting material, potentially
sketching out a new strain of inspiration for her to follow next time out.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Love is Won ( 5:23)
02. Daphne ( 5:21)
03. Little Marriage ( 3:09)
04. Bag of Wind ( 4:05)
05. Grown Unknown ( 3:37)
06. After is Always Before ( 4:19)
07. Ice Wine ( 4:23)
08. Lilac ( 3:57)
09. New Myth ( 4:31)
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -