Outburn FOR THOSE
DARKEST SLEEPLESS NIGHTS: Snowy chanteuse Bonni Evensen opens the album
with a breathy “It’s 3a.m./We meet again.” This, indeed,
seems to be about the time you’d be apt to run into Lilywhite, a
trip that seems to change each time you take it. On one hand, the album’s
arrangements are cinematically lush and often seductive. Evensen has a
similar hypnotic sultriness as Portishead’s Beth Gibbons (Kendra
Smith is another helpful reference point). A decade after his brother
(David) cast spells with Hope Sandoval and Mazzy Star, Steve Roback keeps
the family torch burning with beguiling production (he also co-wrote several
songs), laying richly textured trip-hop canvases for Evensen to paint
on. A recipe for post-rave make out music, right? Hold on. Then there’s
the nightmare inducing, hospital room subject matter beneath even the
sweetest sounding verses; the subject of the seemingly buoyant “Pills”
is on the verge of death (“The doctor says to fight, not to die”),
and the title track opens with a line about a lost angel with a tube in
her nose. But for all its abundant darkness and loneliness, there is something
undeniably sexy and comforting about Lilywhite. “There will always
be dark things in the trees,” Evensen sings. “I’ll shine
the light until they go away.” |