Natalie Evans - "Movements" (LP: Dark Red)

2017's You Could Be A Cop EP is certainly great, but too much stuck in the past is also a problem.

Natalie Evans' 2018 solo album Better At Night was a great acoustic/folk-emo album, but in 2022, her completed album Movements is, in a sense, a more universal “song” album that breaks through the somewhat minor (some would say nerdy) genres of EMO and mash-rock. In a sense, “Movements” seems to have broken through the ranks of such minor (some would say geek) music genres as EMO and mass rock, and sublimated into a more universal “song” work.

The title suggests that the work was clearly influenced by the world situation after the Corona disaster, but I think this was a problem that all art, not just music, like it or not, but EMO, which sings about one's private thoughts and feelings and cohabits with others, faces. Alone, that may be a little different from solitude, but the scenery sung in these songs are all alone, although you may be with someone else in the reminiscences. Perhaps that is why the roaring guitar sounds and band sounds of the “You Could Be A Cop” period were unnecessary, and the technical guitar arrangements of the “Better At Night” period have disappeared, replaced by the minimal expression necessary for her personal mental sketches. Instead, she has kept her expression to the minimum necessary for her own personal emotional sketches. In short, the last track “Guest Room” remained empty until the end of the album, which makes us wonder who would come to the empty room, just like Masatoshi Majima. The title of “Movements” is a record of a time when we were stuck, and perhaps that is what this is about.

While having its roots in the EMO music genre, it is no longer a work that stays there, and its approach to indie music without being too maniacal while maintaining universality can be described as Phoebe Brigers-like, with EMO-like elements coming from the opposite side. It is not going to throw a stone at indie music, which has become a huge industry, but I think there are times when pop music made with a sense of distance and temperature like Natalie's is necessary.

tracklist:
1. Driving Home Late
2. Between the Ground and Sky
3. Movie
4. Pencil Drawn
5. Interlude (Back of My Mind)
6. Colours Fade
7. Sun Song
8. Under the Moon
9. When You Leave
10. To Go On
11. Five Positives
12. Guest Room