Lissie: Castles review – Millennial mall muzak from US country folkster

Castles
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Artist: Lissie
Genre: Country
Label: Cooking Vinyl

The fourth album from Lissie Maurus opens with the gentle patter of rainfall. This MOR country folkster hasn’t exactly embraced musique concrète, but she is willing to embrace a more expansive sound.

Best known in these parts for singing on four tracks on the last Snow Patrol album, Fallen Empires, she continues to purvey a polished and sanitised sound that is exceedingly Starbucks-friendly.

The title track features the most histrionic guitar and vocals this side of an old-school Timotei advert. Blood and Muscle is a stirring but ultimately pointless "I won't give up" anthem. Best Days plods along in a similar vein, and sees Lissie badly rhyme, "I went to college but I didn't wanna, so I dropped out to move to California-ah." Lissie repeatedly tells us she wants more best days, and concludes, "The best days of my life are coming for me."

Feel Good repeats the same party trick ad nauseam, reciting the same sentiment over and over again. "What am I going to do?" she asks on the final track. Her existential pleas are in vain, as a lucrative career in millennial mall muzak surely beckons. lissie.com