Myopia＜Colored Vinyl/限定盤＞

The follow-up to 2017s acclaimed Citizen of Glass, Myopia is the Danish singer/songwriters fourth full-length effort and the second collection of songs self-produced in her Berlin home studio. Built on the competing themes of trust and doubt, the aptly named Myopia is Agnes Obels most insular work to date, continuing in the vein of its predecessor with dramatic pitch-tuned vocals and Gothic chamber pop melodies. Obel has been refining her spectral nocturnes for a decade now, and Myopia, with its fever dream vistas and melancholy abyss, doesnt disappoint. The slowed-down vocals that helped make Citizen of Glass feel so otherworldly appear early on, imbuing Cameras Rolling, Island of Doom, and Broken Sleep with a sort of incorporeal grandeur -- the latter cut, an arm hair-raising, pre-dawn insomnia hymn, bears both tonal and architectural similarities to COG highlight Familiar. Intimate closer Wont You Call Me impresses as well, administering just enough warmth to suggest a thaw might be possible while maintaining the phantasmal vibe of everything that came before. It also serves as an excellent showcase for Obels fluid voice; part Ella, part Enya, and part Eraserheads Lady in the Radiator. Obel dabbles in Lynch-ian dream pop on the titular track (Have you ever been to my myopia/think of a subtle way to let it go), but for the most part, Myopia traverses the same darkened hallways as its forbearers, searching for light fixtures amidst the impermeable gloom. Its elegant, regal even, yet so immersed in its icy solitude that the listener is often left looking for cracks in the facade instead of common ground. ~ James Christopher Monger