With reinvention to the forefront, former teen star Michelle Branch has returned after a lengthy hiatus armed with a new album’s worth of too-cool-for-school indie-styled synth-pop that imagines what Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ might have sounded like if produced by Patrick Carney of the Black Keys. Whether it’s an inspired creative rebirth or calculated career move, it’s a mostly successful metamorphosis either way.
It’s been 14 years since the American singer-songwriter’s last solo effort - 2003’s ‘Hotel Paper’ - and over a decade since she released an album with her now defunct country band the Wreckers. In the meantime, she put together several records that remain on the shelf due to record label wrangling and a tone-deaf approach to her strengths from a rotating cast of execs.
Such struggles are surprising when you consider that, on the back of her major label debut album, ‘The Spirit Room’, she was both highly rated and bankable, singing pop-rock songs about love and heartbreak that, although appealing to her generational peers, lacked autobiographical vividness or emotional depth.
‘Hopeless Romantic’ is a different beast. Branch is now in her early 30s, recently divorced and mother to an 11-year-old daughter. She’s also found love with Carney, who produces here alongside Gus Seyffert.
All of that has inspired a collection of deeply personal songs about complex romantic entanglements that showcase both Branch’s lyrical maturation and a tectonic stylistic shift away from her early, acoustic guitar-based, sound.
A smorgasbord of synth textures create a dreamy collection of contemporary pop songs backed by an organic rhythm section comprised of pumping bass lines and Carney’s crisp, funky drumming. Best You Ever, Last Night and the title track could soundtrack an arthouse film awash with smoke, dim red lighting and slow motion imagery, while Branch’s vocal delivery is markedly more subtle and seasoned, smouldering or soaring as required.
It’s initially a jarring sonic evolution, but only because we’ve been deprived of at least three or four records worth of artistic growth between ‘Hotel Paper’ and’ Hopeless Romantic’. Any disappointed older fans should give this record time to sink in, though, as it boasts some great songs and an abundance of ear candy hooks. You’re Good, Heartbreak Now, Carry Me Home and Not A love Song typify the classy, slow burning melodicism that glides through the record.
Although Carney splashes plenty of instrumental colours on the canvas that mostly complement Branch’s storytelling, he doesn’t always find the right balance between the singer’s past and present. Knock Yourself Out is the closest song to old school Branch, thanks to its acoustic confessional strains and understated atmospherics, allowing her emoting to breathe in a way that would have benefited more electronically charged songs like Shadow and Bad Side. Living A Lie - the only true stinker here - sounds like the Black Keys fronted by ‘Beautiful Garbage’-era Shirley Manson, with Branch’s identity and any lyrical message buried beneath hip, experimental oddness.
There’s certainly a feeling that, from crafting the timely pop-rock of her early days to making a country record just as the genre became trendy, Branch is a dedicated follower of musical fashions. In spite of being made without outside pressures, the modern pop aesthetic of ‘Hopeless Romantic’ will do little to dispel that notion. But nor will it tarnish her reputation as a very good songsmith whose music has clearly been enriched by the difficult experiences she’s had to come through. A welcome return indeed.
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