Younger Summer time

Younger Summer time

Secret Highway

Oct 13, 2023
Net Unique

By Marc Abbott

Nashville is a crowded place to be a singer/songwriter. However this, the self-titled sophomore album from Music Metropolis-resident Younger Summer time (aka Bobbie Allen), is the assured sound of an artist on the prime of her recreation, elbowing her solution to the entrance of the horde.

Key to that is how Allen melds memorable hooks and infectious choruses with lyrics that reveal the darker facet of life, of relationships, of the self, making a deceptively sunny soundtrack to its soul-searching content material. There’s a vulnerability hidden beneath the preparations. Kinda like a goth Karen Carpenter.

However, whereas her 2014 debut album, Siren, utilized synth and drum machine to its decidedly ’80s, electro sound, Younger Summer time’s mid-tempo tunes have a eager really feel, too, for the Seventies. Ladles of reverb, E.L.O-alike bouncing keyboard, Carole King-tinged piano, even a Santana-style guitar solo, are wrapped in a mellow nostalgia. Entrance and middle, nevertheless, is Allen’s voice, dripping with extra heat than a totally clothed sauna, and so excessive up within the combine you could’t assist being captivated by each phrase.

The hopeful “I Nonetheless Like You” wrestles with previous heartbreak, whereas the swoonsome “If The World Falls to Items” blends sparse piano and strings with a Lana Del Rey-rivaling vocal efficiency that urges us to seek out the nice within the tumult of recent life. Moments of indignation burst by means of Younger Summer time’s predominantly brilliant sound, none extra so than on “The Emperor,” probably the most mellifluous anti-Trump tune you’ll seemingly ever hear, on which Allen softly, chillingly, warns: “Get in line/Works each time/Goosebumps turned to goose steps.” And, on “Burning Down Paradise,” she chides, “If what you assume is true/Then why’s the whole lot on hearth?”

It’s a problem to condense the report’s 12 songs to a shortlist of favorites, however current singles “Emotionally Excessive” and “My My” showcase Allen’s coronary heart firmly pinned to her sleeve. You’ll be powerless to withstand swaying alongside to “Moonlight,” try to sing the excessive notes in “Heavy” at your peril, and good luck getting by means of the closing monitor with dry eyes.

Younger Summer time is filled with sufficient sing-along choruses to make it an ideal street journey report, nevertheless it’s softly spoken sufficient to soundtrack a candlelit dinner; it’s laced with ample angst to supply succor in a break-up, but bristles with an optimistic disposition. There’s no contradiction in any of this; it’s a report of straightforward maturity, nice intimacy, and common attraction. Plus, if this stands as a mark of progress, whereas a clutch of Allen’s earlier releases discovered fame in TV present soundtracks, Younger Summer time accommodates no less than one lifeless cert James Bond theme. (www.youngsummermusic.com)

Writer score: 8/10