Przegląd najciekawszych muzycznych premier ostatnich sześciu miesięcy 2023 roku.
Iza Lach's fans couldn't really complain about the number of songs she wrote over the past few years. Krzyk was released at the end of 2011, the following year brought another album, Off The Wire, as well as Good Friday EP, and just a few months ago we could check out her mixtape titled Flowers In The Jungle. On top of it, there were single tracks like "One By One" (the best song on Marina Luczenko's Hardbeat) or "What's The Difference" that make some of Iza's portfolio highlights. All her achievements up to now seem like writing new songs is nothing but a piece of cake for this girl, and what's more, she keeps them up to the mark and so far avoids any failures. The one and only problem is that next to astonishing proofs of her talent there are too many merely decent songs that are nice to listen to, but not necessarily make you push the repeat button. Moreover, Iza's last stylistic explorations tend to weaken her ability to create easily identifiable, contagious pop melodies, a skill so scarce on the Polish music scene.
The newest LP keeps her on track and its lead single "Undecided" is more of the same, a bit disappointing, actually. Fortunately, the whole album is much better and comes up to her first two LPs' standards. It starts with the vocal-based intro "Relaed Evol Eht" and if you want to play it backwards, I can save you the trouble – there's no hidden satanic message in it, I've checked. Subsequently, we get a bunch of catchy, RnB-influenced pop songs and a bit of rap. Each of them has something interesting to offer, I still miss some really solid killers though. "Black Paint" gets very close with its masterful, quavered synths and vocal samples-filled opening verse that makes me wait for an equally strong chorus. Regrettably, what comes next is apparently catchy, but too banal to take your breath away. I prefer the bridge that follows, which reveals Iza's skills for creating dramatic tension in her works.
"360" is another highlight. Its intriguing, minimalistic arrangement builds up a suspense apparent especially just before the chorus. One gets the impression of reaching it, but instead the pre-chorus is repeated one more time and the climax moves away every time. The song is finished off with distinguished vocal cuts in the outro. "The Love You Fake" is a very decent album-track, but it leaves the listener yearning for more. Subsequent "Painkiller" presents an exciting narrative stretched between calmness and anxiety. "Slice", on the other hand, evokes Iza's first records. Both melody and performance refer to her dreamy songs from a couple of years back, and of course it's not bad at all. By the way, Iza makes very good use of her voice. She doesn't go out of her way to try some operatic twists, focusing instead on consistency and accuracy of musical means. She also produced the album and did this job professionally, which is admirable.
If there's something redundant on this album, it's obviously guest rap appearances. These tracks are not bad in themselves, but The Airplane Boys and Soopafly distort my perception of the album. I associate Iza's output with very personal and emotional confessions and the rap bits are not really in keeping with that. It doesn't overwhelm all the bright spots though and I can easily consider Painkiller successful, however I'm sure she can do better. Following her career development and stylistic experiments is fascinating and I believe she will reveal her full potential on the next album.
(Translated by Krzysztof Michalak)
Przegląd najciekawszych muzycznych premier ostatnich sześciu miesięcy 2023 roku.
Oddajemy hołd tej nieuchwytnej, nadal nie do końca rozpoznanej dziedzinie kultury i rozrywki.