Emily Gold - Recluse (2015)

Versatility is both a blessing and a curse. For British shoegaze queen Emily Gold (who now lives in sunny California), her many motifs work more often than not. With eleven tracks on her debut outing Recluse, there are, of course, a few awkward moments, but at least 70-80 percent of the time she hits the bullseye with authority. After an EP release garnered some attention in hardcore circles, Gold has come returned for another round with an album that’s harder to chase down and get ahold of than a desert mirage. She is a shape-shifting queen of unnatural sounds and, sometimes, these multiple change-ups make the record hard to follow. The patient listener, however, is rewarded for time well-spent.

The album almost has a division between track types. There are austere forays into psyche prying, dreamy indie pop that sort of trade dazzling musicianship for texture mastery and a maestro’s attention to layering. These rollicking, anti-gravity compositions rely on barren guitar painting, throbs of bass, a draping of keyboards, atmospheric percussion and Gold’s HUGE voice to carry the material. Cuts like “Drowning,” “Not from Here,” “Out of Touch,” and “Dizzy (Let Go)” are submerged in these murky, yet astral, flourishes that propel the material even when it is as dark as dark can be. It’s about a third or more of the record and definitely one of Gold and her band’s many strengths. However, when she’s not peddling hallucinogenic pop songs, Emily has a second career as a dark, bluesy lounge singer whose voice scowls and scrapes for cigarette burnt tonalities that haunt the memory for days. The best examples of this particular style are on the soul-shaking “Love Moves,” the cold embrace of “Shadow” and the dire verses intersected by crystalline choruses of “Intangible”. These are some of the greatest tunes on the record and totally showcase a side of Emily that definitely needs more fleshing out on the next record. The last quarter of the album bends atonal indie rock with riffs and power-chords with just the right amount of trippy expansiveness like on the title piece and “Retrofitting”. The incendiary “For the Night” makes no bones about throwing a few riffs on the table and seeing if the legs will give. It’s definitely not Gold’s prettiest stuff, but makes an impact when needed most.

Recluse is an album of three different visages. Some may kind of wish she’d hold true to one direction and stick with it for the majority of the album, but there is something to be said about diversifying your sound and taking risks/chances. She has nailed down much credibility with such a strong debut and the majority of this record ranges from good to superbly exceptional, putting her on a pedestal where any direction and diversion is possible. Let’s hope she keeps the best of these ideas for future releases and tinkers with the ones that are rather incomplete. It’s hard to shake over half of these songs after you’ve played the record three times or more, so there is again, something to be said for that kind of staying power!