I came across Lizzy McAlpine’s unexpectedly, last January. I was intensively listening to Jacob Collier’s music at the time, and I eventually found out that Collier was involved in the videoclip for All My Ghosts from a certain Lizzy McAlpine, 1999 born American singer and songwriter from Philadelphia (I already told this story in here, but in Italian). From then on, I discovered that Collier has also collaborated on another track, titled Erase Me, to be included into the upcoming, sophomore album by McAlpine, Five Seconds Flat. The album finally came out on April, 8th and I thought it was definitely worth of a mention on these pages. First of all (my affectionate readers will know it, because I often wrote about this aspect of McAlpine recent work, let’s see the previous link or also here and here), Five Seconds Flat tells a story, which has been summarized in a short movie, realized with the contribution of the American videomaker Gus Black (who also worked on the music videos for the singles taken by the album). The short movie premiered immediately before the album (on April, 7 and you can have a look at the end of this review): randomly walking through themes like love, loneliness, difficult relationship, I think that Five Seconds Flat pictures a gorgeous and powerful image of what it means to grow up struggling with feelings and people all around, some kind of a recognition in the beautiful (and doomed) years of youth (let’s not forget that McAlpine is only 22 years old). This story is blessed by the fascinating writing and especially by the marvelous voice of McAlpine, and Five Seconds Flat keeps together a strange, beautiful blend of intimate songwriting, indie-pop (or alternative rock, depending on your inclinations) and folk, with some electronic flavors that primarily emerges in a couple of songs (especially where McAlpine involves other artists into the composition process, as for the duets with the aforementioned Collier and with FINNEAS). Also, the number and quality of the collaborations aligned along the tracklist gives a good idea of the creative richness of this second LP by McAlpine: apart from Collier and FINNEAS, here you can also find duets with Ben Kessler and Laura Elliott.
The album opening is the powerful anthem Doomsday, that sets up the mood for the whole work: talking about a doomed relationship (Pull the plug in September/ I don’t wanna die in June/ I’d like to start planning my funeral/ I’ve got work to do/ Pull the plug, make it painless/ I don’t want a violent end/ Don’t say that you’ll always love me/ ‘Cause you know I’d bleed myself dry for you/ Over and over again is the first verse), McAlpine mixes TikTok inspirations (the first two verse seems to come from a TikTok video) with some kind of Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s vibes, as also suggested by the beautiful video coming with the song, and set in a classic American high school. If Doomsday is the actual story of an ended relationship, the following track, an ego thing, seems to keep going in this same direction, thematically speaking (It’s not that I hate you/ I hate that it hurt/ There’s nothing else to it/ I can’t do anything more). Erase me, featuring fascinating vocal harmonizations by Jacob Collier, abruptly changes the sound of the album: in a little more than three and a half minutes, McAlpine’s light folk meets Jacobean vibes that immediately remind of the sophisticated electronic pop of an album like Djesse Vol. 3 (I talked about it here). The result is a small sonic ambient, tastefully designed, which indulges in some RnB moods and presents a catchy and unforgettable chorus, highlighted by a beautiful texture of deep, synthetic drone sounds and drum machines. Somehow, erase me presents a third stage of ending a relationship, that period in which you’re dealing with the sense of loss, grief and on the way to forgetting your ex-partner (“After a breakup it feels easiest to seek comfort in the bed of a stranger but that hardly ever makes you feel better. It makes you feel lonelier because there’s ‘nothing there but skin.’ This song explores that feeling, along with the idea that the person you love could replace you too, and there’s nothing you can do about it”). The light and silky indie-rock of called you again, with its final strings grandeur, deals again with this break-up story, yet never seeming to completely come to a close, and introduces the upbeat indie-pop of the beautiful single all my ghosts. Graceful and delicate, all my ghosts is almost an instant classic, with a catchy refrain and an enthralling beat. In the following track, reckless driving, the lyrics and the interpretation of the American singer-songwriter really make the difference: the song, featuring Ben Kessler voice, speaks about the difficulty (and desire) to surrender to love while facing the fear of moving at different speeds in a relationship. I don’t love you like that / I’m a careful driver / And I tell you all the time to keep your eyes on the road / But you love me like that / You’re a reckless driver / And one day it will kill us if I don’t let go, McAlpine sings, and in these lines one can find all the difficulties of letting go, the fear of the unknown, the (right, common) feeling of not being quite ready. Not bad for an author who is only twenty-two. The fascinating carousel of weird, featuring Laura Elliott, has a beautiful and peculiar refrain, embellished by a tasteful string section, making it an episode to remember; weird also closes the first half of the album, introducing a second part where folk-derived songs take up more space. The brief, guitar-oriented lullaby titled ceilings finds McAlpine daydreaming about someone, in an emotional crescendo (You kiss me in your car/ And it feels like the start of a movie I’ve seen before/ But it’s not real/ And you don’t exist/ And I can’t recall the last time I was kissed), while the beautiful what a shame follows the perspective of the “other girl” in a relationship, with courageous and intriguing lyrics, made even more interesting by the subtle contrast between the soft voice of McAlpine and the strong desire underlined in the story of the main character of the song. With firearm, McAlpine introduces the idea that the other person in her relationship may have played with her feelings, using the metaphor of a firearm as the cause of her pain and suffering (There’s a hole in my heart and I can’t find the bullet/ But you sleep with the firearm). Musically, firearm blends folk and songwriting with devastating, violent rock explosions that split the song in two parts, leading to a softer ending. Wrote and sung together with FINNEAS O’Connor, best known for being the other creative mind behind Billie Eilish’ work (well, as you all know they’re in fact brother and sister), the following Hate to be lame is a ballad featuring beautifully written lyrics that starts as a moving voice and piano duet, slightly mottled by small unusual and vaguely electronic sounds: an episode of profound emotional transport, which romantically deals with the themes of love, choices, destiny and everything that would have been different if things had gone some other way by pure accident (“It’s always in the back of my mind/ Maybe my mistakes are the reason/ That I made it back to you in time/ If I could rewind/ Would there be some butterfly effect?/ What if we never met?/ What if the stars never aligned?”). nobody likes a secret is a short acoustic and intimate song, consisting of very minimal and mellow instrumentation accompanied by McAlpine’s soulful and emotional voice, and dealing again with the end of a relationship (No explanation, just a quote in a magazine/ Where you said you only dated me for fun); the adorable piano and voice ballad chemtrails showcases McAlpine at her best, her voice driving sentiments of sadness and regret that fill up the lyrics. The song revolves around the loss of McAlpine’s father, and the metaphor of chemtrails can be easily interpreted as seeing the consequence of something but not the cause, struggling to find a meaning out of a pain that is impossible to completely quantify. Named after a race track held in San Bernardino, California, orange show speedway closes the journey of Five Seconds Flat with an upbeat note, even if regrets still fill the verses (I fell in love at the Orange Show Speedway/ It didn’t look like this three years ago/ I had it all at the Orange Show Speedway/ Or someplace like that, it all looks the same/ Everything changes, what a shame).
Five Seconds Flat deals with the aftermath of a breakup, an emotional rollercoaster where pain is both exhilarating and exhausting, and could kill you (let’s consider the lyrics in doomsday, reckless driver or orange show speedway, all dealing with the metaphor of death). Anyway, as McAlpine seems to tell us, such an event is well expected to leave scars in your soul, identity and, ultimately, on your skin: some scars that won’t heal so easily, and that will define the person that you are going to be. Ultimately, the end of a story is like the end of the world as we know it: frightening, painful, confusing, yet open to a range of further possibilities. You just need to be able to get back on your path, like McAlpine sings along these fourteen beautiful and mostly minimal tracks, ranging from folk to indie-pop and soft rock. With a touch of both sweetness and melancholy, the American songwriter outlines the panorama of a love story ended badly along with the transition from youth to adolescence, to adulthood, using only the stunning power of words and a delicate, rich and beautiful voice: it’s easy to come here for the beautiful choruses, the easy listening songs and the fascinating voice of McAlpine, but her honest, deep and passionate songwriting will make you stay. All these things definitely made of Five Seconds Flat one of the most surprising album of this beginning of 2022.