Album Review: flora cash – behind every beautiful thing
Who knows what's hidden behind every beautiful thing? I don't. But I know who is behind 11 beautiful songs on an album called behind every beautiful thing. Two beautiful people named Shpresa Lleshaj and Cole Randall. Together we know them as flora cash. Their name is paradoxical – it brings together gifts of nature (flora) and temptations of society (cash), just as their album "plays with contrasts—sincerity and irony, hope and doubt, heaven and hell". Let's take a closer look.
The album opens with "Should've Dressed for the Event" with its sombre piano chords and Cole's vocals adorned by anxious vibrato. Organ adds solemnity in the chorus, where the song reaches an almost otherworldly character.
"just wanna feel you" also starts with lonely and rainy piano accompanying Shpresa's dark and sultry vocals. Later the song is enriched with hot and humid textures and crisp drums.
"Like No One Could" stays minimalistic for almost a minute with just vocals, piano and cello. Then the weather changes and we hear the song's heartbeat – a cold abrasive drum machine sound contrasted against Shpresa's warm and passionate vocal delivery. The lyrics are painfully sincere ("I will love you like no one could") and brutally honest ("You're my heart and my poison").
"My Ex Would've Left By Now" sounds fresh due to its pitch-manipulated guitar tones setting the scene for melodramatic vocals and quietly epic string textures.
"Morning Comes" is a highly emotional post-country piece with ghostly steel guitars drowned in reverb and confessional duetting vocals.
"Baby I Love You" is one of the catchiest songs on the record (it appeared on Rolling Stone's radar for a reason!). Warm acoustic guitar, uplifting textures, crisp claps and a hip-hop-tinged drum pattern make the song's melodramatic melody and lyrics sound even more heartwarming: "In my mind I'm already old, you're by my side, the story told."
"The Night Is Young" is a magic mixture of familiar elements: joyful steel guitar, epic strings, wet piano and Shpresa's calming voice. The soundscape here is especially synesthetic: it's a mix of black and lilac forming the color of the endless night sky with guitar licks crossing it like white, pink and silver shooting stars.
Being in love can sometimes wear you out, like it happened to the couple in "i'm tired". The song's melancholic mood and jangly acoustic guitar bring to mind Elliott Smith, while its hip-hop beat and exhausted grungy vocals sit somewhere next to Lil Peep and the like.
"HOLY WATER" sounds magical due to its epic, almost tribal drum beat and ghospel-like backing vocals. The pictures it paints lyrically are full of biblical images. They compare strong love to rain "falling like holy water" amid the raging avalanche and inescapable flood.
"Dragon" is the song that hits especially hard due to the strongest and rawest vocals on the album, full of pain and sincerity that cut you like a knife:
The album opens with "Should've Dressed for the Event" with its sombre piano chords and Cole's vocals adorned by anxious vibrato. Organ adds solemnity in the chorus, where the song reaches an almost otherworldly character.
"just wanna feel you" also starts with lonely and rainy piano accompanying Shpresa's dark and sultry vocals. Later the song is enriched with hot and humid textures and crisp drums.
"Like No One Could" stays minimalistic for almost a minute with just vocals, piano and cello. Then the weather changes and we hear the song's heartbeat – a cold abrasive drum machine sound contrasted against Shpresa's warm and passionate vocal delivery. The lyrics are painfully sincere ("I will love you like no one could") and brutally honest ("You're my heart and my poison").
"My Ex Would've Left By Now" sounds fresh due to its pitch-manipulated guitar tones setting the scene for melodramatic vocals and quietly epic string textures.
"Morning Comes" is a highly emotional post-country piece with ghostly steel guitars drowned in reverb and confessional duetting vocals.
"Baby I Love You" is one of the catchiest songs on the record (it appeared on Rolling Stone's radar for a reason!). Warm acoustic guitar, uplifting textures, crisp claps and a hip-hop-tinged drum pattern make the song's melodramatic melody and lyrics sound even more heartwarming: "In my mind I'm already old, you're by my side, the story told."
"The Night Is Young" is a magic mixture of familiar elements: joyful steel guitar, epic strings, wet piano and Shpresa's calming voice. The soundscape here is especially synesthetic: it's a mix of black and lilac forming the color of the endless night sky with guitar licks crossing it like white, pink and silver shooting stars.
Being in love can sometimes wear you out, like it happened to the couple in "i'm tired". The song's melancholic mood and jangly acoustic guitar bring to mind Elliott Smith, while its hip-hop beat and exhausted grungy vocals sit somewhere next to Lil Peep and the like.
"HOLY WATER" sounds magical due to its epic, almost tribal drum beat and ghospel-like backing vocals. The pictures it paints lyrically are full of biblical images. They compare strong love to rain "falling like holy water" amid the raging avalanche and inescapable flood.
"Dragon" is the song that hits especially hard due to the strongest and rawest vocals on the album, full of pain and sincerity that cut you like a knife:
Things don't look so bad at times if you're drunk or you're stoned
And I feel like I'm wasting my time and it's wrong
I feel like an angel who's come out from hell to believe
Like someone that's blinded to truth and who finally sees
I hope that you're there when I close my eyes, I need you so
It feels like I'm almost ready to fly on my own I feel like I'm already leaving my body, I hope
And I feel like I'm wasting my time and it's wrong
I feel like an angel who's come out from hell to believe
Like someone that's blinded to truth and who finally sees
I hope that you're there when I close my eyes, I need you so
It feels like I'm almost ready to fly on my own I feel like I'm already leaving my body, I hope
The album closes with an instrumental piece "The Builder (För J. Blom) marrying beautiful string melodies with dark, spiky, abrasive synth textures and soothing piano.
Overall, the album leaves a strong impression. It's super emotional and sometimes so melodramatic and sentimental that it leaves you wondering if the artists are dead serious or if they are playing with the pop music cliches to reach deeper levels of our psyche. But in the end, it doesn't matter, because the songs are achingly beautiful and dangerously catchy. And a little ambiguity can't hurt, it just makes the music deeper, stronger and head-spinningly different with every listen.
Overall, the album leaves a strong impression. It's super emotional and sometimes so melodramatic and sentimental that it leaves you wondering if the artists are dead serious or if they are playing with the pop music cliches to reach deeper levels of our psyche. But in the end, it doesn't matter, because the songs are achingly beautiful and dangerously catchy. And a little ambiguity can't hurt, it just makes the music deeper, stronger and head-spinningly different with every listen.
Check out more music from the band.