This week Asha Jefferies released her second album, Desire is an Angel, a glorious folk-meets-dreamy-pop-inspired collection with just a touch of indie rock dotted through it.
It’s one of those albums that ebbs and flows. Opening track Backwards Baby ethereally strums you into the album with a gentle opening guitar melody before the lyrics kick in. The record then picks up the pace with powerful (and for me a standout) second track Lilo and Switch. The deeply poetic, powerful lyricism that Asha is known for really shines on this number. The drums also create a sense of energy as they build and you feel the emotions of the track heighten before it finally bursts and the song unravels with these gorgeous vocal spirals, returning to a calmer place.
This pattern continues for much of the album as it’s punctuated with softer, dreamy tracks, like new single Walrus, alongside grungier numbers like Why Does Your Girl Look Like Me that manages to sound both like rock and jazz at various points. It’s the bigger, heavier tracks that make you sit up and listen at times, but some of the finest moments on this record are hidden in the quiet. Aforementioned Walrus is the perfect example, opening so gently it almost feels like a lullaby, but then in the first few lines of the song we get hit with “I only wanted to dip into a life, take a big bite, now I’m coughing up desire” which is not only such a visceral and beautifully phrased metaphor but in many ways a summation of the album’s themes. And this is what Jefferies does so wonderfully, she begins with such a slice of life, humdrum event (like being on a flight) and then suddenly takes the song into something so much deeper.
It’s great to see Jefferies exploring a wider range of genres and I enjoyed hearing everything from little notes of country and edges of rock, but the storytelling is the heart of Desire is an Angel, and that’s the thing I found myself truly listening for.
Listen to Desire is an Angel here.