Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Romance is Dead
Now this is interesting and raises the usual interesting questions about just how autobiographical about their love life an artist wants to be.
The embarrassment of J-Lo putting it all out there – on album, documentary and some weird extended video movie – about her getting back with Ben Affleck should be an object example to anyone.
A few months after that blitz of loved-upness of mostly toe-curling footage and the album This is Me . . . Now, the divorce papers had been filed (for the second time).
Let's be clear, there is no correlation between Bennifer 2.0 and this new album by the talented co-founder of Auckland's enormously successful Auckland electro-pop band The Naked and Famous.
But . . .
LA-based Xayalith has already drip-fed eight of the 10 songs on this debut solo album which is a generous dollop of her contemporary pop and she's said love and romance lead to this album.
That's evident everywhere in lyrics which would have considerable appeal to a younger demographic discovering love and affection for themselves. Xayalith offers empathetic and optimistic Post-It notes from her own past.
On Ordinary Love: “Past lovers in a past life got me messed up and I don't know why . . . then you turned up and showed me the sky”
On Different Light she's drawn to someone when jealously seeing him with a girl: “You were there the whole time, all it took was you looking in her eyes to see you in a different light”.
On Chaotic: “If you ever, ever, ever stop loving me I think that I would die inside”.
This is emotionally dramatic stuff, the rush of immediate emotions when new love strikes.
However all this comes from someone closing in on 40 and we'd hope that this new flush of romance is enduring.
In that regard – her maturity -- she juggles a self-aware adult perspective while conveying that youthful joy or reticence.
On Boys and Guitars: “I know I'm a hopeless romantic even though I'll be disappointed . . . there's something about the song Superstar, it played on and on when I was young, hung up on boys and guitars. I knew nothing about love. I was fanatical making it up. Careful what you wish for, it's not make-believe like before”.
That's a mature voice speaking amidst the rush.
The final song Romance is Dead is a hypnotic slice of rolling pop with that sharpened awareness: "If you’re playing pretend, only time will tell me how this could all end. Honestly, you might be my downfall If romance is dead".
Alisa Xayalith delivers excitable journal entries as tightly wrapped pop packages.
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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