Exploration of intimate contact within a fruitful, sweet wall of sound.
Not going to lie, I wasn’t finding myself grabbed by Japanese Breakfast’s first two albums. While I liked the boldness and lyrical themes of her debut, it’s not something that I find myself going back to. Her sophomore album expands her sound palette into softer, synth-driven territory, but it just didn’t click with me as much as her first. And the fact that those two albums reused tracks from her past projects pulled me away from the emotional heaviness, even if I do empathize and appreciate it.
So going with this 3rd album of hers where it’s clear that Japanese Breakfast moved past the downbeat themes that were based on her mother’s passing due to cancer, I am kind of intrigued by what she has to offer here.
It’s pretty great, and it gets much better on every listen. This is definitely Japanese Breakfast’s livelier record to date, where she manages to be more expressive and jubilant, the production isn’t as languid or as wishy-washy as her past albums, giving the instrumentation and her vocals the space that they need. The instrumentations are the most varied and rich that it has ever been with the inclusion of the brass horns, the violins, the synth swells, the punchy drums, and well-toned guitars and bass that makes each track distinct from each other while not having too many instrumental swells that might clash in with each other. The melodies are pumping and catchy, and oddly have these melodic patterns that might come close to the 60s, or even one track where it could’ve been a Paramore song. And the lyricism is pretty interesting as well, where it feels like there is a sense of longing and desperation of intimacy in the poetry paired with certain details that makes this intimacy more reserved, searching yet distant, which does make for an interesting arc as it ends off with the intimacy being revealed upon the instrumental solo that ends the album in a pretty satisfying way.
If there are any flaws I could point out, is that there are some instrumental tones that didn’t work that much for me, the guitar tone on ‘Sit’ felt garish, the synths on ‘In Hell’ and ‘Tactics’ felt a little bit out of place. And as much as I get the lyrical sentiments of ‘In Hell’ where her dog seems to be a personal companion for her within this arc of longing for intimacy, but it feels oddly out of place in the album. And some melodies parse through without that much development, which shouldn’t be that way given that some of these songs are already short.
But those nitpick didn’t really taint my enjoyment with this album, as there are chunks that I really loved that kept me going back to this album with repeated listens. And just like the album cover, it’s a pretty sweet and fruitful album for sure.
Favorite Tracks: Paprika, Savage Good Boy, Posing In Bondage, Be Sweet, Kokomo, IN, Slide Tackle
Least favorite track: In Hell