"Sometimes at night, when mark william lewis is feeling overwhelmed, he visits the banks of the Thames River and skips rocks across its surface. "Each stone," he says, "is another thought sent spinning into the water." It's a potent ritual, one you can almost hear in the songwriter's opaque, introspective guitar ballads. In a dusky baritone, he offers meditations on heartbreak, connection, and the heavy burden of living."
"On his self-titled new album-the first non-film-related release on tastemaking movie studio A24's music imprint-he largely continues in this mode. The record's 12 tracks are fragmented, transient, and unsettled, anchored only by lewis' steady voice. From the first moments of opener "Still Above," lewis sounds ruminative and uncertain: pleading for peace, mulling old memories, and looking ahead to a "restless journey home.""
"The mood is anxious and agitated throughout: Even "Tomorrow Is Perfect," a comparatively breezy song by lewis' standards, feels tightly wound, as he murmurs of fanged hounds, unfriendly doctors, and "the brutal bridge of betrayal." On "Spit," he sings ominously of illness and mistakes and "blood in your spit every fucking day." On the distorted, otherworldly "Brain," he wants to make amends, but even in those pleas, his thoughts are clouded by doubt and cynicism."
Mark William Lewis's self-titled album contains 12 fragmented, transient tracks anchored by a steady, dusky baritone. The songs offer opaque, introspective guitar ballads that meditate on heartbreak, connection, illness, mistakes, and the burden of living. Instrumentation includes gasping horns and echoing electric guitar lines that create a dislocated, otherworldly atmosphere. Lyrics present half-thoughts and fractured images that reveal fleeting, elusive truths and an unrelentingly bleak headspace without collapsing entirely into darkness. Even comparatively lighter moments remain tightly wound, marked by doubt, cynicism, and a persistent sense of wandering and disconnection.
Read at Pitchfork
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