Arlo Parks – Ambiguous Desire album review: The Skinny

Arlo Parks has lengthy made a house in vulnerability and poetic lyricism, and on Ambiguous Desire, she doubles down on that intuition with confidence. The album is filled with psychedelic textures, punchy basslines, and dreamy vocals that blur collectively into one thing hypnotic however anthemic. While the coherence of the document typically lends itself to monotony, the darker sonic undercurrent, coupled with a newly discovered extra intricate and explorative sonority, has a sensation of quiet and dreamlike absorption.

Across the entire document, Parks’ vocals are soothing and ambivalent. Get Go, one of many album’s singles, is unquestionably the document’s most euphoric second. Punchy however shimmery, its broadness conjures the sensation of dancing and spinning freely, arms out. South Seconds, a sluggish, intimate ballad, strips again to disclose a extra emotive and trustworthy expression, one way or the other evoking ocean waves and a fading sundown. Nightswimming bridges these completely different sounds superbly. With an expansive refrain that steadily builds on the chorus ‘Just a second in time’, the phrase nearly turns into devotional, chanted like a dreamy mantra. 

Listen to: Get Go, South Seconds, Nightswimming