Album Review: Indigo De Souza - Precipice

After records exploring heavy notes, Indigo De Souza tilts to a soft breather. ‘Precipice’ is a leap to dreamy pop cascades that should sound brighter, yet ends up not so spectacular with melodies, writing, and production just hitting a lesser impact than before.

After a couple of projects where Indigo De Souza pours so much of her tumultuous details, ‘Precipice’ may as well act as her doing her best to turn over a leaf and embrace the joy that’s going on her way. In this project, she finally manages to take an exhale as she continues to live on, providing courage to herself amidst relationships and personal trials that have bogged her mind, now prepared to brush those fears away and take that leap for something new and hopeful. It might mean simplifying her usual lyrical style, but in looking for those joys in life, the clearest details will matter to her.

Unfortunately, this leap to something new does have a lesser impact this time around. Part of it is changing producers to Elliott Kozel and shifting the way Indigo De Souza creates her songs, where the focus on having more pop emphasis is welcome, but felt like relying too much on its gauzy textures and never having the punchy melodies and strong hooks to back it up. A little bit of a shame as Indigo De Souza’s strength as an artist comes from her vocal prowess that provides emotive swell when she is paired with compelling compositions and grooves. Some of it shows up the most on the piano and synth-accented pop of ‘Crying Over Nothing’ that swerves into a saturated mix on its chorus lines; the buzzy synth that modulates on ‘Not Afraid’, overall matching Indigo’s assertive emotions; the shuffling groove of ‘Heartthrob’ that carries the most frenetic energy out of all the songs; the lilting acoustics, pedal steel, and piano that provide a sense of warmth on ‘Heartbreaker’. Very good songs that leave the other undertuned cuts (the swells of ‘Dinner’ and ‘Precipice’ especially) end up more underwhelming.

Yet despite all that, this is clearly a transitional project that represents Indigo De Souza going through more motions in her life as of late, and given how much of that has put her in a conflicting state, ‘Precipice’ is a sense of joy that she may as well need more than ever before. One that might not stick the strongest as the changes in sound, writing, and compositions have felt more neat at best and rather underwhelming at worst, that sheen of gloss becomes its double-edged sword. Yet perhaps, when standing at that precipice, that gloss is what will keep Indigo De Souza going. See where her creative spirit will land next.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘Crying Over Nothing’, ‘Not Afraid’, ‘Heartthrob’, ‘Heartbreaker’

Least Favorite Track: ‘Dinner’