Not quite ascending…
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[5.57]
Alfred Soto: Mumbling from zero to sixty suits her as much as the strings.
[4]
Juan F. Carruyo: Fragmented, long and hallucinatory. Violin drones surround her voice, then the chorus haphazardly hits and it rises above all the tension that’s been building up for its lengthy run-time, but I’m not sure whether it’s a musical gut-punch or celebratory. That’s probably the point.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m not sure the rises and falls of dynamics are quite right — they’re a little unbalanced, particularly in the beginning, which peaks fast — but it does make it that much more unexpected when at the end the register shifts from Zola Jesus 10 to 11: alto roars, strings like horrible geese, and torrents of sound that, while not really my preferred sort of torrent, sure have an impact.
[6]
Ian Mathers: I’m not sure what I was expecting (although this song makes me suspect either Olsen has switched things up recently or the descriptions I’d read didn’t do her justice), but it definitely wasn’t something this starkly dramatic, let alone a song that brings to mind anyone from late Roy Orbison to early (the) Verve. Going to need to hear the album now.
[8]
Tim de Reuse: For such an expensive-sounding production it shows an impressive level of restraint! Over a thumping, unsyncopated drumbeat, strings slide and chords half-resolve; a heavenly earworm, pulled through five full minutes of cloud-surfing tension. The Mitskian finale, while appropriate and well-handled, turns out to be the least interesting part.
[8]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: A Brill Building march towards Hell. It bears the romantic longing of girl group songs of old, and then pulverizes it — gradually at first, and then all at once. Was it all just an irrational fantasy? It’s hard to say, mostly because this song is way too fucking long for me to care.
[5]
Vikram Joseph: There are one or two moments of unexpected intimacy buried in “Lark”, but it’s such an exhausting slog across six and a half minutes and more showy crescendos than I’d care to count that by the time you get to the end it’s hard to remember what they were. Quiet-loud dynamics are fine, but the loud parts don’t provide any sort of release, and Olsen’s undoubtedly powerful voice rapidly becomes enervating as she belts out three-note melodies with absolutely no dynamic subtlety. The bombastic drums and seething orchestral flourishes demand attention, but only in the sense that a crying toddler does. You suspect that the verse where Olsen sings, “Baby, I was there in an hour / I was there, and you put it all on me” is the heart of the song, but “Lark” trades that heart in for a blustery, overlong arrangement that is, unfortunately, really tiresome.
[3]