Smooth soulfulness and pop-ready hooks alike dazzle throughout …letters from my past, the new album from Silja Rós, an Icelandic musician, actress, and screenwriter. The artist’s third album excels with a stylish brand of pop that seamlessly incorporates soul and jazz influences, in addition to a retrospective and personal thematic sense. “When I was writing the songs I went back to old diaries and unreleased songs in search of untold stories from my past, keeping the songs close to my heart and personal,” Silja Rós says. “The song titles flow together forming a chain of thought, when the mind keeps wandering from one thought to another.”
Opening the album, “Lemons…” captures infatuation and its power to shape one’s personal perceptions — like the magnetic chorus’ proclamation that “you make lemons taste so sweet,” rather than the sourness they may typically exude. The verses’ rainy-day contemplations rise into an expressive neo-soul adoration, thoroughly inducing replays. The ensuing “…suppress my truth” presents a more wintry balladry, asking “can you let go?” amidst tender guitar stylings and reflective backing vocal haunts. A heart-aching desire to move on is conveyed with artful immersion there.
Another standout, “Curtain Call.” continues those letting-go themes with a direct opening: “Is it time to let you go?” An ensuing chorus — “our last curtain call…” — finds an ascending vocal tone coalescing with chilly, jazzy keys. Accounts of learning “the hard way,” continue to bolster emotions of recognizing a love as going awry, and willing to move on; the equivalence of a “curtain call,” is exuded artfully, and stands as amongst the many standout pieces of songwriting and production evident throughout …letters from my past.
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“Curtain Call.” is also featured in the genre-based, best-of Spotify compilation Emerging Indie Soul.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
