On a recent morning, I was thrumming with anxiety. My brain would not stop whirring so I went for a walk around my neighbourhood and listened to Angie McMahon’s new album while looking up at the flowers, the trees, everything above ground. By the end of it, everything was still, and the sky looked especially blue, and I felt my breath return to my body.
Perhaps that’s a strangely personal way to start a piece of criticism, but so much about the Melbourne singer-songwriter’s meditative second album feels personal, as though it was written especially for people who feel like this. McMahon’s anxiety is evident in these songs, too – but so is her self-soothing as she looks both within herself and to the world outside and beyond to find something like peace.
As its title suggests, Light, Dark, Light Again moves through emotional and sonic worlds both gentle and heavy, always returning to the former. McMahon’s debut, 2019’s excellent Salt, dealt in crunchy guitars and the singer’s commanding lower range. While there’s still some of that here, as on the thumping Mother Nature, this record has a more delicate touch – it’s largely light and airy, while still packing an emotional punch.
Much of its beauty is in its simplicity, as on Black Eye and the gentle whisper of a song that is Fireball Whiskey (though the lyric “I really hate to vomit” is one of the record’s strangest – who doesn’t hate that?). Elsewhere, such as on the cavernous Music’s Coming In and Making it Through, the arrangements are more sweeping and cinematic, recalling the likes of The War on Drugs.
McMahon’s dextrous vocals float from low to high, showing off her impressive range and control. She often adds texture through the application of her voice: on Divine Fault Line, she accompanies her own singing with a chugging refrain that anchors her melodies; on Fish, her voice becomes an echo of itself; and on Serotonin, her jagged breath becomes a percussive instrument.
Sights and sounds of nature and the world are also key here. The trickle of running water tops and tails the gorgeous opening number and first single Saturn Returning; McMahon circles around metaphors and imagery of dirt, stars, the sky, the ocean. It all gives a lovely sense of flow and connectivity as the musician ponders her place in this big, wide universe – a small speck in an endless sea of wonder.
A lot of the lyricism and sentiments on this album are the type of thing you might see on a motivational poster or Instagram tile: “It’s OK to make mistakes,” McMahon repeats like an incantation on the soaring single Letting Go; “I’m learning to love my skin,” she sings on Divine Fault Line; another song’s title, I Am Already Enough, speaks for itself. In less skilled hands, these self-affirmations could come across as corny or hackneyed, but there’s something so genuine and earnest in McMahon’s delivery – like she really believes what she’s saying, in the transformative power of it – that makes the lyrics feel, instead, like a therapeutic balm.
Light, Dark, Light Again is a record of this moment, capturing something true about the time we live in and the way in which so many of us exist. There is fear and unease in these songs, but there’s also a quiet determination and reclamation of the mind and the self. This beautiful, soothing record shows McMahon’s skills not only as a songwriter and storyteller but as a wise guide for the busy and anxious modern mind. Another cliche, perhaps, but it’s true: these songs are an invitation to slow down, to listen, to observe, to accept, to exist among the madness of it all.
