On first pay attention, the second album from London singer-songwriter Arlo Parks feels like one thing to luxuriate in; Parks sings and lays down poetry over plush textures and simmering beats. However a more in-depth pay attention reveals that these pillowy buildings are, in reality, cushions in opposition to the blows of contemporary life—bulwarks that hold Parks’ self, the “delicate machine” referenced within the album title, shifting with out reducing herself off or struggling an excessive amount of long-term injury.
Parks is a pop prodigy; she acquired seen by a administration firm as a teen and gained the 2021 Mercury Prize along with her debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams, which got here out when she was months away from turning 21. That album’s mix of bedroom-pop sensibilities and intricately detailed lyrics felt very in tune with the homespun vibes of the early pandemic, even because the experiences described by Parks’ supple, soothing voice possessed a depth that indicated boundless curiosity.
My Delicate Machine expands that sonic palette whereas additionally digging in deeper emotionally—even when Parks is describing the methods during which she tries to numb out. “I want I used to be bruiseless,” she mumurs on the album’s dreamy opener, rueing her personal misplaced innocence whereas regretting her powerlessness in opposition to shielding others from malevolent forces, together with all of the complicated, not-always-positive emotions tied up within the phrase “love.”
Parks has a ability for inviting listeners not solely into her thoughts, however into her rapid setting, and the results convey her racing feelings proper to the forefront. The gently groove-forward “Blades” locations Parks’ eager for an ex-intimate amidst a celebration outfitted with totems of the nice life—Diptyque candles, tequila cocktails—that solely make the “remorse… flowering inside me whereas I’m scooping ice” hit tougher. “Purple Part” is a rain-slicked chronicle of seeing a pal in disaster, Parks’ asides about the opportunity of her depressed companion getting higher—”I simply need to see her iridescent charming cats down from timber,” she exclaims in a sing-song voice—contrasting sharply with the photographs of her falling into despair.
That expertise extends to Parks’ cheerier moments, too. The grunge-soul love tune “Devotion” explodes right into a chunky riff at its climax, its lyrical references to Deftones and Kim Deal turning into alive in its 2023 imaginative and prescient of the alt-rock period’s poppiest peaks. “Impurities” is a sun-dappled love tune the place cascades of synth wash over a easily sauntering beat; Parks is totally enthralled within the thought of being seen as a full human—“I radiate like a star… while you embrace all my impurities,” she trills on the refrain, safe sufficient in herself to be okay with any flaws her lover might need: “Don’t cover the bruise, I do know it’s exhausting to be alive typically.”
On the darkly hued “Pet,” she affords a glimpse of a type of instances as she recounts her sympathies for a pal who’s misplaced his mom—however she gazes inward with a extra gimlet eye, musing, “And I’ve by no means felt like loss like that/ And I pray I don’t must.” After all, the prospect of “issues [that] harm perpetually” is at all times lurking, and Parks is aware of this; the pensive, layered “I’m Sorry” admits it, with Parks—surrounded by synths and a buried-in-the-mix arpeggiated guitar—apologizing for her incapacity to let folks in as a result of “it’s simpler to be numb.”
“You bought me feeling hyper actual/ And I wanna belong to you,” Parks sings on “Canine Rose,” which pairs pointillistic lyrics with swirling guitars in a manner that evokes early infatuation’s headiest mind-benders. Parks’ second album reveals her hyper-real perspective, seizing on particulars in a manner to determine her place on the planet, one the place she will really feel pure pleasure whereas bracing herself and her family members in opposition to life’s slings and arrows.
