or “Sad and Disillusioned at 22,but the succincthas a more hopeful—if not illusory—ring to it. Romanticism calls for unbridled feeling over intellectual analysis, and drama over deliberation. And there’s unbridled, unbearable, uncontainable feelings galore on Vu’s sometimes harrowing second album. Her sense of drama is not all smoke and mirrors. Instead, her carefully crafted feminine pop is loaded with an overwhelming air of melancholia that carries its own emotional drama.
Cascades of Jackson Phillips’ tinkling piano introduce Vu’s echoing, lush croon on opener “Look Alive,” in which she confesses “Now I’m a ghost of who I have been”—a cipher emptied of breath and barren of the spirit of youth. If that sounds like a major downer, adorned with sighing strings of course, then it is tempered by Vu’s proclivity towards buoyant, almost jaunty melodies and a sardonic knack for playing up her own neuroses.
While Phoebe Bridgers is the poster girl for what male rock critics love to label “sad girl indie,” Hana Vu is a serious contender for making sadness eminently danceable. “I’m just getting old, I’m just 22,” she laments on “22,” and it has all the pathos and weary resignation of a woman who is 92. To laugh, or cry? Vu seems unsure of the answer herself—sounding eminently more upbeat on the grungy, melodic “Care.
Historically, the Romantic Era over 220 years ago was a retaliation to an increasingly conservative European political environment, championing imagination and spontaneity through music, art and language. Vu’s retaliation is more personal than political, directed at the demands of adulthood and the expectations of a young woman to journey through specific life landmarks once she sails out of her teens.
The yearning, sometimes ghostly loveliness of her voice and her swirling synth-string arrangements better parallel Bat For Lashes, Soccer Mommy, Cat Power or—most befittingly—the gloomily romantic, synth-pop of Japanese Breakfast. Trying to classify Hana Vu, or to judge her at all, though, feels almost like a violation of sorts. At only 22, she’s seemingly been judging herself most harshly of all for as long as she’s been conscious.
Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)
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