Romanticism

米国カルフォルニア出身のアーティストHana Vu。多くのサイトで絶賛された以前の作品ではさまざまな人との対話から生まれたフィードバックを取り入れて作品を作ってきたが今作では自身の考えを貫いた作品となっています。ラウドな楽曲はギターを多用したインディー・ロックにシンセベースを重ねた未来的なアレンジを加えています。Day WaveのJackson Phillipsが共同プロデューサーとして参加、

On her full-length debut, 2021s Public Storage, rough-and-real Los Angeles indie wunderkind Hana Vu worked with a co-producer for the first time while continuing to diversify her sound into dark, dancey, and dreamy directions. That producer, Day Waves Jackson Phillips, returns for the musically like-minded follow-up, Romanticism. Allowing for immersion at 12 songs and a 45-minute run time, it finds Vu entering her twenties and dealing with the personal and broader existentialist struggles of a lovelorn Zoomer with questionable prospects: its a mood, and Vu nails it. Lines like "Theres no song in my heart/Like I thought there was when I was young" and "Im sorry bout the way I am/Please move along" populate the opener, "Look Alive," a symphonic prologue. The next track, "Hammer," seduces with its grooving bittersweetness, melancholy guitar strums, and shuffling beat before the lyrics, instrumentation, and vocal line escalate into something more desperate and anthemic, as Vu calls for help from established structures and doesnt get any. Similarly, catchier, rousing entries like the giddy indie rocker "Alone," swaying midtempo standout "Care," and shimmery, pulsing post-punk track "Play" are alternately about abandonment, playing and losing, and trying to find peace in deciding that "Its okay that no one cares about you/And no one cares about me/Cause what is care anyway?/I dont know whos to say." Even a disco-y song with a title like "Dreams" carries a punch as it catalogs a fantasy life where its easy to fall asleep and "doesnt hurt to be alive." Romanticism closes on the rambling, explosive "Love," which arrives at "I guess this is love/I dont know what to say/I dont know how to stop." Setting its heavy heart aside, the album still affects with an emotional roller coaster of musical material, recommended together for a good dance-cry. ~ Marcy Donelson

LAを拠点に活動するSSW、Hana Vuの＜Ghostly International＞よりリリースする2ndアルバム。今作もDay WaveことJackson Phillipsが共同プロデューサーで参加しています。ギターとシンセのバランスが絶妙な《Hammer》《Alone》で心揺さぶるエモーショナルなサウンドを展開していき、最後にはシューゲイザーの響きが最高な《Love》でノックアウト。青春の切なさや自信の喪失を嘆くかのような魂のこもった歌詞にも世界観が表れています。過去1番にオルタナティブな本作はシーンを牽引するアーティストへと成長した傑作です。
intoxicate (C)石田真生