Released: 28th February 2020
Rating: ★★★
For every new artist, there’s a fundamental burden that hangs on their shoulders in the run-up to their debut album, and it comes in the form of pressure – to live up to expectations; to have longevity; to always be inspired. In the case of Brooke Bentham, these feelings are a part of her everyday life. Having succumbed to a career in music and found that she was not experiencing the gratification that was romanticised in her youth.
As a result, her debut album is a stunningly ambivalent outlook on life and all of its mundane aspects. Bentham’s knack for candid lyricism and sentimentality is captured in the album title ‘Everyday Nothing’, and what lies beneath is a distinctively magic expansion on everything she has done before. ‘Blue Light’ exudes an unexpectedly funky ambience; ‘Control’ is a complete shedding of skin with its scuzzy guitar being reminiscent of The Breeders, and ‘Baby Lungs’ is more akin to Nico and The Velvet Underground, but ‘High’ and ‘Men I Don’t Know’ retain the soft, airy nature that we’re all familiar with.
Bentham exudes nothing but light throughout the bleakness of existence, and by having Bill Ryder-Jones at the helm of production, it’s as though their two musical worlds that normally exist parallel to each other have somehow spun into the same trajectory to become something more, something heavenly.
Tyler Damara Kelly
