Allo Darlin' - We Come From The Same Place

Neuigkeiten aus dem Hause Allo Darlin'. Mit "We Come From The Same Place" veröffentlicht das englisch-australische Quartett nach "Allo Darlin'" (2010) und "Europe" (2012) sein drittes Album und klingt dabei etwas rauer, roher und weniger lieblich als zuvor. Auf Songs wie "Bright Eyes" oder "Half Heart Necklace" dürfen die Gitarren sogar ein wenig schrammeln. 

Die Sängerin und Songwriterin Elizabeth Morris ist mittlerweile verheiratet, lebt in Italien und im Gegensatz zu früher ging ihr das Komponieren diesmal recht leicht von der Hand:

“So many things have happened since I first wrote the songs that make up this album, it´s difficult to remember back to where it all began. The songs were written very quickly, during a period when I found writing songs very easy, whereas I often find songwriting very difficult. Some of the songs were written so fast I can´t even really remember writing them. The songs were a joy to write, and writing them made me feel better about lots of things.”   

Die 11 Songs von "We Come From The Same Place" bieten aber auch immer noch von Ukulele und Steel Guitar geprägten, luftigen Indiepop, mit dem alle Freunde von Camera Obscura, Lush, Belle & Sebastian und The Go-Betweens glücklich werden können. Platten-Sammler sollten sich auf das limitierte, weiß-blau marmorierte Vinyl stürzen. 

The songs rollercoaster between major and minor keys, acting as a mood-setter for Morris' words which are often complimented by brilliant riffs and bass lines from Paul Rains, Bill Botting and Michael Collins.

Morris' anecdotal vignettes are subtle, as if she's practically sitting next to you and telling you these stories over coffee. The warmth of her delivery draws you in to her hyper-detailed lyrics, but the true hooks run even deeper. Each song is buried with hidden gems in the form of the simplest, most effecting couplet or statement, casually tossed out there carrying universal wisdom. Just when you feel like you've objectively gotten everything you wanted from Morris' stories, she tosses out a line like "I wanted to impress you/ And I think you knew" ("Kings and Queens") or "I'm just tired of being strong" ("Romance and Adventure") and it reels you in even closer than you'd expect. We Come From The Same Place is a lyrical wonderland that keeps listeners exploring more with each listen. Indie-pop or not, it's infectious on many levels.
(exclaim)

The result is an album that uses an unmistakable scrawl to describe new vistas, like a postcard from an old friend. The tour-honed full-band interplay, especially on uptempo songs like the road anthem “Kings and Queens,” brings a frenzy that’s novel for Allo Darlin’. And where 2010′s outstanding debut album amped up its superbly catchy new-love vignettes with lyrical references to Weezer and Johnny Cash, and the richer follow-up, 2010′s Europe, used allusions to the Silver Jews or the Maytals to help jog the narrator’s memory of halcyon days, here the mentions of The Lion King, Joan Didion or Auto-Tune on the radio are mere details: humdrum fabric in the songs’ own vibrant tapestries.

Newly married and newly Italy-based, Morris acknowledges on “Santa Maria Novella” feeling like a “tourist” and the risk of being “corny.” But it has always been her fresh-eyed perspective, combined with her willingness to take the chance of raising eyebrows, that helps her songs hit an emotional sweet spot. That’s still true here — even when she’s gleefully embodying a stalker-ish figure out of hometown lore on “Half Heart Necklace,” a deceptively creepy standout. Meanwhile, the album’s best songs, “Crickets in the Rain” and “History Lessons,” both ruminate on a theme Morris has described as “anti-nostalgia.” To Allo Darlin’, this concept doesn’t mean rejecting the old all together; the billowing title track imagines a shared, communal past, and the defiantly sunny “Bright Eyes” is only a more freewheeling entry in a history of male-female duets that goes back to the first song on the band’s first album.
(wondering sound)