Virtue's cover art includes toy dinosaurs and a sinister-looking Virgin Mary. Like Joanna Newsom's Ys and Bat for Lashes' Two Suns, among other records, the second album from London singer-songwriter Emma-Lee Moss establishes its central themes and ideas visually before anyone plays a note. As with many such visually upfront records, Virtue is also a conceptually unified listen, influenced heavily by a broken engagement to a man who decided becoming a Christian missionary was a better idea than marrying Moss, otherwise known as Emmy the Great.
The offbeat nature of Virtue's artwork extends to its music, as well, though not always successfully. Opener "Dinosaur Sex" may have an attention-grabbing title, but despite a creaking, Mesozoic breakdown, the song tends to sag beneath the weight of a less-than-subtle narrative about how one day everything dies. On "Paper Forest (In the Afterglow of Rapture)", Moss compares the end of a relationship to something of biblical proportions-- another idea that's interesting in theory, but clumsy and unconvincing in execution.
Still, quite a few of the songs here have some nice touches. "Creation" adds a spooky synth veneer to bleak electric guitar chords. "Sylvia" also benefits from a more electronic feel, with a bouncy synth bass propelling the song lightly alongside a brisk drumbeat. It's probably the poppiest moment on the record, and when vocal harmonies appear towards the end, they carry an airy momentum that's easy to get onboard with.
In fact, Virtue comes across best when Moss is at her least kooky. On "Trellick Tower", she paints a disarmingly wounded picture over solo piano: "In those days of living gently/ Something holy used to love me," she sings. In this context, free from all the overcooked symbolism, Moss' story at last becomes truly engaging. It's a frustrating hint that when she isn't putting her quirks in the foreground, Emmy the Great can be an appealing, compelling figure in her own right.
