Sevdaliza - Shabrang (2020)

From the beginning, Sevdaliza's emotive singing and songwriting and cutting-edge productions were fully realized. Nevertheless, she's found room for artistic growth with every release. On her debut album, Ison, she expressed its concept of past and present incarnations with tracks that layered upon each other into a transcendent whole. With Shabrang, she expresses the themes of pain, loss, healing, and renewal in ways that are more varied, but just as striking. The album's title means "night-colored" in Persian, a motif that's echoed in Sevdaliza's bruised eye on its artwork and the way she leans into her music's ache. She uses more organic sounds and rougher textures to dig deeper and pull listeners in closer on the haunting "Joanna," where her songwriting takes on a mythical, almost folkloric quality to tell a story of all-consuming love. Similarly, on the title track she traces the almost imperceptible shifts and seismic changes of the heart with the intensity of a classic torch song, even as an ominous dubstep bass looms behind her. This embrace of long-standing song forms -- which recalls Ison's exploration of how the past shapes the future stretches to the prominence of Sevdaliza's Iranian roots on the album. The title Shabrang alludes to the name of a loyal steed in an 11th century epic poem from her birthplace, while her somber, string-laden reimagining of Googoosh's 1974 song "Gole Bi Goldoon" pays tribute to her heritage as well as Sevdaliza's own flair for drama. Throughout Shabrang, she uses traditional melisma and vibrato as well as futuristic pitch-shifting skillfully to transform her voice into new shapes and emotions. On "Human Nature," she lets it melt and flow like water before lifting it into impossibly, achingly high notes; on "Oh My God," she morphs into different personae as she questions the politicization of her heritage. In its natural state, her voice is so rich that it fits perfectly into every setting she puts it in on Shabrang. Working once again with co-producer Mucky and string arranger Mihai Puscoiu, Sevdaliza uses a wider and more adventurous musical palette than ever before. On the tumbling, hypnotic "All Rivers at Once," she juxtaposes electric guitar, synth, and violin in ways that make them all sound fresh. As always, her use of textures is stunningly expressive, particularly on "Darkest Hour," which transforms from piano-driven heartbreak into dark, propulsive, dancefloor-ready grooves that distill the album's mission to turn pain into strength. At once dazzling and heartfelt, Shabrang is an epic journey, and Sevdaliza is brilliantly in control throughout it.