Transcending Expectation: Lizzy McAlpine’s “Angel”
Album Review ★ Alyssa Bushman ★ @lissyb_21 ★ 3 Minutes
Lizzy McAlpine is best known for her gut-wrenching beautiful lyricism and soft spoken sound. Lizzy’s fourth studio album Angel was released on September 18th. Her voice transcends expectation and carries a storyline that is vulnerable and raw. She is a technically trained musician and it shows itself in the experimental nature of the melodies and instrumentation. She is not afraid to take risks, but similarly, she is not afraid to strip it all the way down and let the lyrics carry the art.
Lizzy McAlpine via Gabriella HughesThe opening song was the lead single for the entire album and it is perfectly fitting for the sonic introduction to the album. “The light in the painting” is calming and gentle. Released on July 23rd, this song was Lizzy’s hard launch of a relationship and fans were floored by it. Featured in the music video, Lizzy’s boyfriend Kane Ritchotte, shared a heartfelt post about the music video shoot on Instagram.
“Anybody’s fool” follows the emptiness of a breakup, wanting to move on but wanting the familiarity of the relationship back. “A car wash and a new pair of pants” is in reference to a Nick Drake song and discusses how she felt that an ex only dated her for her status and presence rather than who she is. “I have a friend” was actually recorded prior to her Broadway run in the show Floyd Collins. She has mentioned in interviews that while listening we can hear how her voice changed throughout the recording of the album.
“The moon” is a lyrically dense song. The overarching metaphor of the Earth’s orbit always pulling the moon back towards it, Lizzy compares it to a relationship as we try to pull away from what no longer serves us but we are pulled back by some imaginary force. “Ugly things” was another single for the album, furthering the discussion of that invisible pull back to unhealthy relationships because of loneliness and not for what the relationship truly was.
The only feature on the album goes to “Soldier of the road (feat. Fleet Foxes)”. Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Lizzy’s voice blend beautifully to meet us at the halfway point of this album. Everything after this song on the album takes a much lighter turn at least sonically. “Peach” , while sonically lighter, packs a major punch to the gut lyrically. The freedom that was always just out of reach in earlier songs, has now found its home here and Lizzy feels the independence that she so desperately wanted. “Over country” is a sickly sweet song that McAlpine has credited James Taylor and Joni Mitchell as influences for. Since writing this, TikTok has taken this song as a beautiful dedication for long distance friendships and relationships.
“Two elevens” has a really interesting Auto-Tune effect on it that makes the song feel like a distant memory. She has captured the romantization of a toxic relationship that needed to end in a song. “Our strange ways” is a seven minute long masterpiece that chronicles an alternate reality where the person she was with did not exist in her life and she is free, but lonely. The production on this song is really interesting because you would think that a longer song like this would have constantly changing chords and instrumentation. Instead, the repetitive chords are broken up with transitional and occasional sounds of nature. Each verse opens up a new sound that sonically transports you into a vignette of what “the world without you” would like through her eyes. The song closes with a hidden outro that is more home recording style than the rest of the song and it closes the song in such an interesting way.
“Mason’s song” is almost a diary entry for what has transpired since the breakup. How do you describe what losing a parent is like to someone? “The crowd” answers thata question by showing Lizzy navigating her grief after losing her father at 20 years old. McAlpine has a tradition of making her 13th track on each album a song about him. “Angel” is the closing title track of the album. This song is sweet, light and airy. It carries on that folk and bluegrass sound that inspired alot of the album.
Angel is a technically and emotionally gorgeous album with heartbreak, hope and production styles that feed the soul.
