You have to be impressed when you read that this album was recorded in the various band members’ homes, quite unexpected given the attention to detail and the sonic finesse of this collection of songs from Houston‘s Blossom Aloe. I know that modern recording technology makes any space, essentially, a potential studio, but it has to be a testament to the band, the songwriting, the arrangements, and, not least, the producer Casimiro “Josh” Vargas’s skills to end up with something sounding this deft and delicious.
As an opener, “Nothing to Do” ebbs and flows between spacious indie licks and the raw roar of more rock-and-roll-inclined guitars, between dexterous sonics and smooth, warm, and welcoming vocals, you realise immediately that this is not an album to be easily tagged or pigeon-holed. Nor should you try, after all, what is life without a bit of mystery? Not everything should be easily explained or understood, certainly not in the arts.
“Side of the Fence” is, by contrast, a slice of soul-soaked indie pop, a song that could easily have been found on an early Nora Jones album, smooth, seductive, sensational.
And the further you travel into the album, definitions become less easy to find. “Dead Man” is fun and funky, with a hint of ska rising up from time to time; “I Wanna Love You Again” is a gorgeously serene pop ballad; “Meltaway” is romantic R&B; and “Unhurt” is a torch song that seems to be simultaneously underplayed and overtly groovesome.
As the title, The Silver Lining Shines Bright, suggests, this is an album about finding the unexpected light in a difficult world. Inspired by a turbulent year for singer Mia Jane Coyle, one where loss and love, pain and joy came in equal measure, the message here is that we should look for the light in the darkness, as “Silver linings are all we have in this life.”
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