Streetlights Like Halos

Magdalena Bay “Death & Romance”

Magdalena Bay started off as a pop duo with darkly humorous lyrics that subverted their form, but with time they’ve become far more comfortable with sincerity. I don’t necessarily see that as an improvement as I’m fine with either approach, but I do think they avoided falling into the trap of every song needing some clever lyrical twist or joke premise. “Death & Romance” is a very dramatic and bombastic composition and they play it as straight as they can, leaning into the white hot emotion evoked by the music rather than pushing against it. A lot of that feeling is conveyed by the fill-heavy live drums, which dials the energy way up and approaches the aesthetic Rich Harrison was going for in the early 00s with songs like “1 Thing” and “Crazy In Love.” Mica Tenenbaum’s vocals are particularly strong – she sings with conviction even in ironic joke mode, but this time around she’s convincingly selling the passion of a love that feels like a matter of life or death.

Buy it from Bandcamp.