Polly Scattergood, Arrows Album Review
Olivia August
Polly Scattergood’s sophomore album is relatively unimpressive. Many critics have described both the album and her overall sound as “dark”, but I think this description is topical, at most. Scattergood’s lyrics are not often lighthearted, but they also just float there with nothing to ground them. The album feels like reading the diary of a depressed, hip, teen poet. She attempts to appeal to her listener’s sensitive, lonely, introspective side but ends up going to juvenile with it.
Lyrics like “And I woke up in your bed/ covered in your roses red/ and there’s money in the liquor jar/ wished upon a falling star” in the song “Wanderlust” just kind of hang there. They attempt to be poignant or powerful but really they just sound untethered. There is no context. And then there are songs like “Cocoon” in which Scattergood sings “As I stumble, look away/ Don’t want you to see me this way/ I am no good, I am no good at all/ Nobody catch me when I fall”, just self deprecating lyrics that wreak of melodrama.
Scattergood’s sound is definitely an interesting one; her voice is dark, high, and clear and lends a sort of ethereal feel to her music. It pulls the listener in and makes them want to keep listening, to find out whom this Scattergood character really is. But that’s the problem; it does feel like a character, or even a caricature of the emotionally isolated artist. There isn’t anything deeper than the topically personal and the listener is left feeling as if they were reading the diary pages of a teenage fairy. There is not enough detail to connect with.
Recommended Tracks:
Falling
Miss You
Wanderlust
