Sticking to her lane once again which ends in repetitive mundanity, Faye Webster delivers her underwhelming set of tracks through usual pristine and not much else. ‘Underdressed at the Symphony’ may have opened up a bit more experimentation through tempos and instrumental variance, yet not exactly saving the sloppy melodic ticks that now have lost their charm.
Time and time again, Faye Webster’s brand of alt-country and singer-songwriter languish has never stuck throughout her overall discography thus far, where the reliance on lush instrumentation and languid, silky vocals parsing through her lonely, stilted relationship conflicts has her bringing into her comfort zone rather than tilt into something a bit more out of that situation. Always on slow to mid-tempo, with prim vocals, and soothing compositions, it has become to be a formula that has formally made decent but not outstanding projects under her discography. And while it makes sense given the relationship arcs that are submerged with a lot of her personal struggles with boredom and loneliness, it doesn’t really allow her to break out out of her safe zone and take a bit more risks.
Through ‘Underdressed at the Symphony’, the usual tapestries that Faye Webster is approaching yet again have become less impressive, eventually fading into the background as the formula has become the biggest weakness in this project. Amidst the gentle warmth of the instrumentation with the elegant keys and strings paired with the warm ruffles of the percussion, horns, and guitars that have always been the better parts of Faye Webster’s albums, her melodies that tend to meander on cuts like ‘Lifetime’ and ‘Thinking About You’ alongside her tendency to keep the sparse hook fill out space till the songs eventually fade has now lost its charm, not helped by the fact that the alt-country leaning tracks ‘Wanna Quit All the Time’ and ‘Underdressed at the Symphony’ quickly flicks themselves bereft of any remarkable shifts. While it makes a lot of sense towards the quaint narrative surrounding Faye’s loneliness and some parsing existential undertones now distracted with her relationship on both platonic and romantic, the similar presentation taken from past albums has become a repetitive aspect that makes the instrumentation and melodies fade ever so fast.
It’s quite the disappointment, because when Faye picks up on quicker tempos on ‘He Loves Me Yeah!’ with the pulsing electric guitar under the sweet piano lines and ‘Lego Ring’ where the shuffling snarl contrasts with the swirling cooldowns with her and Lil Yachty’s warbling voice harmonizing together extremely well, or even having a striking melodic pattern with the scorning keys and glacial progressions on ‘But Not Kiss’, there is that glimpse of something striking coming from Faye Webster. But unfortunately, that’s not exactly the direction she leans into the project, where it’s apt from the album title and its context that she much prefers to not stand out much in the crowd, rather blending in alongside them in peace and quiet.
To end this off, ‘Underdressed at the Symphony’ is an album that still revels in its gentle bed of cushions that doesn’t let Faye Webster go off to divert into adventurous sonic territories. While there are those adventurous moments spilling through here and there, for the most part, what the album provides is something that Faye has delivered on her past work that has now become its faintest version of itself. Faye Webster may have felt some degree of peaceful relief in blending with the crowd, but for the most part, she could’ve at least pushed herself on going towards something off the beaten path.
Favorite Tracks: ‘Lego Ring’, ‘But Not Kiss’, ‘He Loves Me Yeah!’
Least Favorite Track: ‘Feeling Good Today’, ‘Tttttime’