To date, Lykke Li's biggest exposure was her song "Possibility" appearing on the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack. From a producer's standpoint, her inclusion was a no-brainer: Not only was her debut titled Youth Novels, but it captured the intense yearning of youth, which is also an aim of the Twilight series. Few indie artists seemed as well poised as Li to vocalize Stephenie Meyer's heroine's point of view. As the singer herself told Pitchfork recently, "I like that age when you feel misunderstood and still believe in the pure idea that love conquers all"-- perhaps the most concise and astute explanation of that franchise's appeal.
That is, however, only one aspect of Li's considerable appeal. As vampire franchises go, she has much more in common with Buffy Summers than the shrinking Bella Swan: Li can kick serious ass, yet even at her toughest, she nurses a persistent desire for a normal and secure life, which-- if her second album, Wounded Rhymes, is any indication-- involves intense love, great sex, and weird dance moves. Li proves a rich and compelling character in her songs, which are dark but also complex, contradictory, and, thank goodness, still rough around the edges.
Like Joss Whedon's show, Wounded Rhymes is an album of stark, scintillating contrasts: between fantasy and reality, between the powerful and the vulnerable, between the brash and the quiet, between the rhythmic and the melodic. Audacious anthems jostle next to heartbreak ballads like "Unrequited Love", with its simple guitar and shoo-wop backing vocals. Dense, busy numbers give way to emotionally and musically stripped tracks like "I Know Places". "I'm your prostitute, you gon' get some," she sings on "Get Some", a come-on so blunt that it's become the talking point for this album. As a single, the song brazenly grabs your attention, but in the context of this album, alongside such forlorn songs, it becomes a desperate statement, disarmingly intimate in its role-playing implications but also uncomfortably eager to shed or adopt new identities to ensure a lover's devotion.
Rather than adjust or reconcile them, Li lets all those contradictions ride, having grown more comfortable in her musical skin. While there are no highs here quite as high as Youth Novels' "Little Bit" or "Breaking It Up" (and no low nearly as low as "Complaint Department", though "Rich Kids" comes pretty damn close), there is a sense of cohesion missing from that debut, as well as an understanding that a record can be a document of a particularly tumultuous time and place. To write these songs, Li spent long months in New York and Southern California, spending a great deal of time alone in the desert. The result is depressive without being depressing, dark without being bleak, as it rejuvenates, refines, and redirects her eccentricities.
The biggest moments on Wounded Rhymes take the form of slower ballads, whether stripped down like "I Know Places" or grandiose like "Sadness Is a Blessing". But they gain their power in contrast to the more upbeat tracks like opener "Youth Knows No Pain". Dropping some of the coy affectations of Youth Novels, Li proves a surprisingly dramatic singer with a powerful voice and strong phrasing, able to render the emotional pain of "Sadness Is a Blessing" as somehow exultant-- a transcendent state of being.
Like any good vocalist, she knows when to bow out and let the music speak for her. "I Know Places" cuts off early to set up a long, dreamy coda that acts as both a quiet promise of escape and an album intermission that sets up the penultimate "Jerome", which seems to synthesize every single emotional and musical urge on the album. Both ballad and banger, the song sheds its elements until only the thunderous heartbeat rhythm remains. That moment bleeds into the finale, "Silent My Song", a nearly a cappella closer that swells and fades dramatically. "No fist needed when you call," Li sings. "You silent my song." It's a devastating statement, yet ultimately an untrustworthy one: She has harnessed her heartache and her happiness to amplify her voice, not to lose it.
