Last Night In America (Indie Only)

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Singer/songwriter Matt Kivel quietly amassed a healthy discography of solo material after stepping away from his more band-oriented work around the beginning of the 2010s. Unlike his long-running indie pop band Princeton, Kivel looked to more subdued sounds, first channeling the winsome hush of Nick Drake, but growing darker and more introspective with each subsequent album. Fifth album Last Night in America is the singer's most intimate work in a catalog full of personal sentiments, with Kivel acting as the record's sole writer and performer. Over the course of his other albums, a unique language has formed around the songs. On more than one occasion, he buried shockingly graphic or emotionally intense lyrics in soft beddings of unassuming indie folk. This happens throughout Last Night in America, with lyrics focusing on troubled interpersonal dynamics or dire political states being quickly washed away by tides of light, airy acoustic guitars. Songs like "The Tower" feel almost designed to hide heavy themes in gentle folkiness, and Kivel employs a steady, glistening electronic beat to obscure his observations of a divided country burning down on "Two Braids." The music feels like springtime while the lyrics are stuck in the dead of winter. While earlier albums incorporated electronics and ambient passages, Last Night in America has a sharpened focus on ambient and synthesized sounds. Where electronics were limited to padding or brief interludes before, here synthesized compositions linger, Kivel reaching for new ground with emotive instrumental pieces like "Under Glass Air" and the troubled amble of "Tiptoe America." These inspired instrumentals enhance the rest of the album, mirroring the conflicted emotions of Kivel's lyrics wordlessly. When the ambient swells give way to songs where raw observations barely rise to the surface of lushly minimal Americana, the shifts of tension and release become part of the arrangement. Last Night in America drifts by gently like a warm night, but holds uneasy secrets that demand repeated listens to understand. The sounds breathe and move continuously, their strangeness and strength becoming clearer with each spin. ~ Fred Thomas