You can’t really put NZ artist Amelia Murray into a box. If her new album, Soft Power, was playing in the background at a noisy pub, you’d probably categorise it as dreamy psych with pop sensibilities… and you’d be right. But dive deeper into the record, and it reveals itself to be a collection of juicy juxtapositions that sound massive while feeling quite personal. It’s hard to think of anyone at the moment who’s doing it quite like her.
Take the album’s title track, for instance. Stripped back, it’s a wavy ballad that you could imagine a lonely cowgirl playing in a dive bar. But the version we get is a beat-driven anthem, made to be sha-la-la’d to—it wouldn’t feel out of place in a stadium lit up by mobile phones.
‘So Easy,’ which comes with a shiny new video, is once again a song of two stories. On one hand, it’s got this washed-out, experimental vibe with vocals soaked in fuzz and tails of delay riding high in the mix. On the other hand, the melodies are so catchy that you might be fooled into thinking you’re listening to a Taylor Swift cover.
