Kiesza’s house-pop hit “Hideaway” arrived alongside a rush of mid-2010s dance-pop crossovers, distinguishing the Calgary singer through an ecstatic blast of energy and a viral one-take video. Kiesza’s debut didn’t deviate far from that song’s formula, yet it also led to platinum sales in Europe, three Juno Awards, and a big-tent collaboration with Diplo and Skrillex’s Jack Ü. Then, while writing her follow-up in Toronto, a car accident derailed her life, leaving her with memory loss, fatigue, and balance issues on the left side of her body. Faced with the possibility of never performing again, Kiesza worked with a chiropractor and various alternative health approaches to will herself back into physical and mental shape within a remarkably fast two years.
The trauma led to more than just a bodily transformation. Kiesza parted ways with her major label to start her own; performed a brief, stripped-back acoustic tour; and released a pair of downtempo synth-pop songs that reflected a new sense of resolve. That reinvigorated spirit persists on Crave, Kiesza’s independently released second album, where she compacts emotional and romantic upheaval into tactile electro-pop packed with splashy synths and soaring melodies.
Crave is obsessed with overstimulation, both in its gale-force choruses and Kiesza’s plain-faced lyrics. Each touch is electric or addictive, as in the energetic “All of the Feelings” which, down to its title, unabashedly recalls Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION era. The festival-primed single rides a jaunty chorus (“I’m getting all the feelings back/You make me believe in love again!”), with verses punctuated with gasps of air and vocal runs that instantly evoke glee. “Run Renegade” pulls off the same feat, dolloping on the nostalgia with delightfully chintzy drum pads and lyrics that urge on the album’s themes of reclamation: “I’m not giving an excuse,” she sings, “because I’m not changing for you.”
Crave’s detours from euphoria feel sleekly designed in their own right. Kiesza slips into a more restrained vocal mode on the lithe “Love Me With Your Lie” and finger-snapped “When Boys Cry,” singing in a breathy mid-range that especially suits the former’s disco throb. Yet the maudlin “Love Never Dies,” the album’s lone ballad, dials things down too far, channeling musical theater over a lilting piano melody and funereal drums. It feels like a strange outlier, especially in comparison with her more evocative, emotionally spare one-off ballad “Sweet Love” from last summer.
Still, Kiesza’s gut-punch delivery and melodies buoy Crave into a brief, bright pleasure. The title track is an ideal example of the album’s insistence on lifting you out of your bad mood, using Prince-inspired guitar licks and a rubbery synth line to express unfettered longing. Kiesza sounds free and untroubled over stacks of her own backup vocals, ready to give in to an emotional free-fall. It’s impossible not to feel the same exaggerated sense of bliss.
Buy: Rough Trade
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