Album Review: bathwater

Luna Shadows’ new album bathwater arrives on the back of considerable momentum from their previous work. Currently based in Los Angeles, since releasing the single Hallelujah California in 2016, Luna Shadows has garnered considerable attention, some serious press and impressive listening numbers.

Given that this latest work was created in the height of the Pandemic, bathwater is very much a modern introspection, so to speak. Throughout, Luna Shadows inhabits an internal landscape, exploring a very 21st century catalogue of lyrical concerns itemised as’ love, loss, grief, realization, recovery, and remembering” – ironically not a million miles from the concerns of the 19070’s ‘singer ‘songwriter’ generation of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Crosby Stills and Nash. It’s a lyrical territory that listeners of the Dacus/Bridgers/Baker nexus of BoyGenius, Billie Elish and Lorde’s last album will also find familiar. The skill these artists work with, and challenge they face, has always been to transform that inner experience into a shared resonance- to somehow allow the internal voice of one to resonate with the mood of the many. It’s a tough road to hoe, especially given that any sense of artifice or ‘faking it’ would be counterproductive to say the least. Luna Shadows doesn’t make this mistake, and that is one of the many reasons why this is such an engaging listen.

A brief scan of the song titles points towards a certain level of expectation as to the musical and lyrical content. What perhaps might be unexpected is how Luna Shadows navigates this landscape with a skilled musical intelligence that becomes increasingly impossible to ignore as one listens to this collection as whole.

Because it’s hard to deny that there is a highly skilled musician at work here. It would be easy to make assumptions based on the studied melancholy of opening tracks full moon and witches’ brew, but that would bely the subtlety and clever arrangement touches of heroine, the dynamic shape of monroe and arm’s length which make for a real ‘live set closer’ moment. The production, courtesy Bradley Hale, matches the delivery perfectly, and a careful listener will relish how his production resonates with the work of Finneas- especially in the love of unique timbres-and the impact becomes more noticeable as the album plays out.

bathwater is a collection of strong songs and is rewarding as a collection. It’s very much an album or playlist experience, and it’s recommended to listen to it with that in mind. Given the nature of its creation, it would be fascinating to see how these songs would translate into a live format, but also given the background, training and experience at play here, there really needn’t be too much concern.