"Guitars slide off of breakbeats, pitch-shifted vocal samples and weird funk jams web the space between tracks in reveries of dissociation. There are handclaps so tiny they sound like fingersnaps in "starburn," and a guitar whose delay effect puts it off-beat with the rest of the song. It feels like there are never fewer than eight things happening, and even when those eight things seem to be taking different paths, they always end up in the same place."
"But where the long shadow of VH1-style adult alternative looms largest is in the record's overall tone: This is music that seems to take place right after the ugliness and unpredictability of catharsis has passed. Morell's vocals are higher in the mix than they were on extra life, putting more emphasis on her straightforwardly beautiful melodies and giving these songs a greater sense of clarity."
No scope draws broadly from '90s radio favorites and VH1-style adult alternative to create a dense but well-organized bedroom-pop sound. The record places Morell's vocals higher in the mix, sharpening straightforward, beautiful melodies and a sense of clarity. Songs flow into one another with breakup-like, tear-soaked associational logic, combining guitars, breakbeats, pitch-shifted vocal samples, funk jams, and minute handclaps. Many tracks present numerous simultaneous elements that converge melodically, producing ready-made pop with ambitious scale. Opener "exo" exemplifies the album's sunlit payoff, while the project treats pop ambition as a form of experimentalism.
Read at Pitchfork
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