Autosmile is a breakup album that addresses the act of coursing through love with an absent mind. The 4AD debut of Philadelphia duo @ staggers in its mission to characterise the emotional wreckage of a breakup spurred by mental removal.
The without-warning key change of Love in the Dark sets up a rasping electric guitar lick from the ‘60s, the first glimpse of Victoria Rose’s sweet, rising falsettos and Grande-esque whistle register, her synergistically gut-wrenching harmonies with Stone Filipczak, and quest to “love in the dark”.
Its mystification on life’s plot twists carries over to Stone’s hush-hush lead vocals on I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking), fit with its own compositional exploit in the form of a jagged, almost upsetting, guitar chord that follows seminal line “are you the barge? The ship isn’t sinking / I know you are but what am I thinking”. It is akin to Your Dog’s painful minor chords and repetitive anguish.
The album’s longest voyage is its title track, which logs the emotional connectivity of a former lover and everything that stems from separations; ‘fuck you’ to ‘thanks’; the heat-of-the moment (“don’t be a coward; come on look at me and tell me that you’re leaving”) to self-judgement to the repeated provocation “nothing wrong with my bed”. This multi-phased highlight beautifully accentuates the journey of the human condition.
Amity views love only in postscript, in a modern indie twist on ‘60s hippie folk, its moderate Bohemianism retaining @’s ‘freak folk’ badge of honour amid the album’s moderate darkness and whimsy. The album is different to your typical indie folk outing, but the most severe it gets is the collection of animal noises that appears on Punish My Mind – lovely, whirling backing vocals from Stone, by the way.
Debut album Mind Palace Music – now well over five years old – was darker, but Autosmile is appropriately obsessed with change. Where I Know You Are is knocked groggy by change, the album itself characterises life’s changes with tones far more variedly than the duo’s darker debut…
That doesn’t stop opener Bird from packing as much dark acoustic guitar-picking as possible, soundtracking the swoops of crows, or horror hand drums that suggest voodoo, or lensing change in the form of a dead bird, but hey, sometimes albums begin with anomalies.
The bread and butter is stuff like Earthly Love’s Beatles White Album folk, with the correct, meadowy acoustic hammer-ons. The song itself transforms, forming with whimsical, elvan woodwinds like spells uttered to open new doors. Its outback harmonies depict the good and the demon together; regret, time and luck working together, paving roads.
The fairylike, simple – because complexity might kill the fairy – melodies of the album’s untitled track are delightful; the perfect companion to the fantastical, eccentric state of keeping one’s youth as an elder. Like the best of the bunch – which it also kind of is – it contains minor chords that sneak up on you, ambush and change your life. I’m Not in Pain’s equivalent set piece is its kicking itself up the ass, frighteningly in a sudden liveliness in drums and vigour, picturing the fall of a relationship and uncertainty of one’s next chapter.
Autosmile is a unique, sophisticated view into breakups and change. Its sophistication travels through the weirdness of psych folk like vapour; its uniqueness cradles progressiveness in songwriting, concealed but unconcealable words, and humanistic suffering, whether mighty like the crush of love’s defeat, or mild like the inconvenience of simultaneously pressing shift and apostrophe on a keyboard.
Best tracks – I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking) – Earthly Love – Your Dog – Untitled – Autosmile.
Rating – 8 out of 10
