Plumbiferous Media

Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li released her debut album, Youth Nov­els, three years ago. That album, while flawed in cer­tain aspects, did an impres­sive job of intro­duc­ing Li to the indie world. Ear­lier this month, Li released her sec­ond LP, Wounded Rhymes. Wounded Rhymes not only addresses the major­ity of the issues with Youth Nov­els, but rep­re­sents an impres­sive piece of work in and of itself.

Instru­men­tally, Wounded Rhymes presents an odd sort of mix. The col­or­ful, bom­bas­tic sound that opens “Youth Knows No Pain” strikes a sharp con­trast with the more sub­dued, bassy sound of “Love Out of Lust.” This sort of sonic dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion is com­mon across the album, and extends not only to the sort of sound Li uses for each track but to the way in which that sound inter­acts with the rest of the album. On a track like “Jerome,” Li’s voice is on equal foot­ing with the instru­men­tals, weav­ing in and out of a sim­ple but care­fully formed rhythm. On the other hand, in “Love Out of Lust” the instru­men­tals serve as sup­port for Li, allow­ing her voice to ring out clear and sharp.

Li’s voice falls into a rather unique cat­e­gory, embody­ing as it does ele­ments of a num­ber of dif­fer­ent gen­res. Li’s voice is simul­ta­ne­ously del­i­cate and weighty, con­vey­ing both melan­choly and joy through care­fully shift­ing rhythm. It doesn’t hurt that Wounded Rhymes’ instru­men­tals are well-tailored to Li’s voice. As both the instru­men­tals and Li’s voice are gen­er­ally quite fluid, Wounded Rhymes man­ages to avoid stag­nat­ing even when one becomes more con­stant, thanks to the pres­ence and fresh­ness of the other.

Lyri­cally, Wounded Rhymes is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the album’s mes­sages seem a bit over­wrought (say, the major­ity of “Get Some”), but oth­ers strike exactly the chord the album seems to be aim­ing for. It’s hard not to under­stand at least some of what Li is express­ing when she begs “sad­ness,” here treated as a being in and of itself, “not to go,” won­der­ing “Will sor­row be the only lover I can call my own?” Per­haps that sort of sen­ti­ment is a bit of a cliché, but in this case it cer­tainly doesn’t come off that way. Instead, Li turns it into gen­uine sen­ti­ment - and it works.

Given that Wounded Rhymes is only Li’s sec­ond album, there’s not many com­par­isons to be made yet, but, even given her impres­sive debut, this newest album is cer­tainly her best work. That doesn’t make it per­fect, but it does pay trib­ute to excel­lent vocals, well-composed instru­men­tals, and largely engross­ing lyrics. As a whole, Wounded Rhymes makes an excel­lent sec­ond LP. There’s cer­tainly no sopho­more slump to speak of here, and we look for­ward to Li’s next work.

This post is tagged 80-89, Lykke Li