Spectreview: Lomelda – Hannah

Released: September 4, 2020

Indie Folk
Slowcore

-MAGENTA-

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“Wonder won’t let up
But dread ain’t such a bad line”

Hannah, Lomelda’s second full-length under Double Double Whammy, is technically a self-titled record. It’s not, however, a solitary affair as last year’s M For Empathy was; instead, Hannah Read culled together a full band to flesh out her comfy, clement songs. Their work, combined with her brother’s remarkably warm production, makes Hannah Lomelda’s most ambitious work yet, and also perhaps her most affecting. 

Read’s records have always felt like miniature worlds, or like walls to lean back against, but Hannah at times threatens to burst out of the speakers. She and her brother, a long-time collaborator, recorded the album in their hometown of Silsbee, Texas; though the songs vary in tone and mood, a dry warmth nonetheless seeps into the record. That variance, however, is one of multiple wonders present here. Mild uneasiness creeps in on “Sing for Stranger,” electronic drums shudder on “A Stranger Sat By”, and Read’s voice hits a emotive, Alex Menne-like peak on “Reach.” Time signatures shuffle, volumes rise and lower, and each song is wrung for maximum emotional impact. The overall effect is enchanting, especially considering how Read is so good at subtly injecting her tracks with hooks (see the cyclone words and meaning on “Wonder” or the loom-like chorus of “Tommy Dread”). Stylistically it’s still very much the Lomelda we’ve come to know over the last few years, but this new production feels like an awakening and an even more natural fit for Read’s lyrics.

Central to every Lomelda record is the introvert’s eternal war between the pull of wanting closeness and the insidious fear of that closeness potentially causing deep, lasting damage. On Hannah, as well, she documents close encounters and missed connections with a poetic candidness and a fitting inscrutability, easier to feel than to know. Trains of thoughts become cluttered, epiphanies come suddenly, strangers remain at arms’ length and the self becomes yet another force to contend with. The dominant mood is still contemplative, but Read’s emotional range is comparatively vast on this record, lapsing at times into wild camaraderie and sly jokiness. Somehow, that feels like a realer portrayal of who Lomelda really is, a success for an album committed to identifying the personal. Ironic that, for someone so concerned with the mechanics of human communication, she’s able to deliver art that says everything it needs to without a note of excess.

Recommended for dawn car trips.