It\u2019s taken me months to work up to buying this album. Usually, there\u2019s nothing I love more than a much-touted indie-pop release, but after listening to the album\u2019s opener, \u201cYour Ex-Lover Is Dead,\u201d I was sure it would be impossible for the rest of the material to measure up. <\/p>\n
But then, sometimes fate intervenes (fate, this time, being the combination of the latest My Chemical Romance album\u2019s $20 pricetag and my desperation for new music). <\/p>\n
Set Yourself On Fire <\/i>begins with a stark, spoken epigram: \u201cWhen there\u2019s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire,\u201d then dissolves into the languid, mournful strings that set the tone for \u201cYour Ex-Lover Is Dead\u201d and the album. With its lush instrumentation, vocal interplay between lead singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan and its hushed, aching refrain — \u201cLive through this and you won\u2019t look back\u201d — it\u2019s one of those tracks you can play a thousand times and never get tired of. <\/p>\n
It perfectly segues into the title track, which layers synths and a waterfall of strings, mixing in Campbell\u2019s clean, clear vocals as he skates over lines like \u201cIn a cancer ward the patients sit, waiting patiently to die \/ in an aeroplane high above the place you finally left behind\u201d and the song\u2019s refrain, \u201cThere is only one thing.\u201d In the final few minutes, \u201cSet Yourself On Fire\u201d switches pace entirely, moving into a cold, quietly beautiful coda with Campbell repeating the line \u201cTwenty years asleep before we sleep\u2026forever\u201d over dreamy, almost hypnotic piano chords. <\/p>\n
The subsequent two tracks counter the post-breakup haze the album had set into: first, Millan takes the lead on the instantly catchy breakthrough hit \u201cAgeless Beauty,\u201d and then on \u201cReunion,\u201d an ode to rekindled high school love with an endearingly hopeful chorus, she sings \u201cAll I want is one more chance to be young and wild and free.\u201d Both are two of the album\u2019s overarching gems, perfect slices of pop without ever being too sugary. <\/p>\n
Overall, the main problem the album runs into is its fifty-seven minute runtime, which, in turn, causes the standout tracks to get bogged down near the end. Case in point: the stunning, slowly unfolding \u201cThe Big Fight,\u201d featuring a languid, swirling groove, gets lost among the cloud of songs that could have been B-sides at best. The resoundingly average \u201cThe First Five Times\u201d and the glaringly out of place \u201cHe Lied About Death\u201d are among this crop, which serve to trip up the flow.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But despite such slip-ups, what rings true after a few listens of Set Yourself On Fire <\/i>is its resounding mood of quiet romanticism, which, though at times overblown, is always enjoyable enough to ultimately amount to far more than just your typical buzzed-about indie release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":28590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7864],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40064","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stars","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40064"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}