In 2020, Alison Wonderland hit a turning level.
“My life was going a sure manner earlier than one thing pulled every little thing out from beneath me…I felt like I had hit my all-time low,” she mirrored in a press launch. It was a reckoning each private {and professional}, as engaged on new music remodeled from an emotional outlet right into a rallying name.
“I noticed that I’ve at all times seen myself because the sufferer of my story,” she recalled. “This time, one thing shifted in me, and I made a decision that I did not wish to be the sufferer anymore.”
Wonderland’s third album, Loner, is out now and it is the sweeping results of this new awakening. And regardless of the title of her 2018 sophomore effort, Awake, it is truly this new 12-track venture that finds Wonderland at her most lucid.
Loner is house to a few of Wonderland’s most subtle songs thus far, leaning into preparations extra refined than her typical modus operandi. As a substitute, they lean into deeply susceptible lyrics and bewitching sound design. The report is consultant of Wonderland’s most uncooked self, stripped all the way down to feelings that develop from desperation and submission into braveness and empowerment.
The opening monitor of Loner, “Endlessly,” is emblematic of the ensuing ethos in only a few phrases. “It’s going to really feel like ceaselessly till it does not,” sings Wonderland, who says the album is probably the most “optimistic, hopeful” venture she’s ever written.
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Then there’s “New Day,” which finds energy within the whirring tones of its refrain and the prismatic bursts of vivid arpeggios. Orchestral anthem “Unhealthy Issues” sees these arpeggios explode like fireworks in opposition to a minimalist bass backdrop, whereas “Worry of Dying” builds them right into a cathartic breakdown that bellows like a crescendoing rock solo.
“I need one thing greater than nothing,” Wonderland pleads on the excellent “Fuck U Love U.” Its headbanger-pleaser drop finds masterful influence in synths that sound like a refrain of whistles.
“One thing Actual,” an ethereal home monitor moonlighting as a love tune, feels significantly profound. Poignant sound design and refined synth ornaments glitter like stars atop a soul-stirring drop.
All of it involves an in depth with the album’s titular monitor, a vortex of mind-warping sonics from which Wonderland emerges reborn. “I am a loner. I am alone now, and it is okay to cry,” she declares.
Loner hasn’t forgotten the darkness from which it was born, replete with sonic tinctures that harken again to its creator’s sobering recollections. There are even tracks—just like the drum & bass minimize “Eyes Closed” and menacing lure heater “Thirst”—which absolutely embrace it. “Cocaine,” Wonderland playfully revealed throughout her pop-up album release party in L.A. livestream, is devoted to all of her least favourite individuals within the music business.
“I refuse to let disappointment overcome me. Every part is available in waves, up and down and again once more,” Wonderland concludes on the interlude monitor “I am Doing Nice Now” (simply play it backwards to listen to the not-so-cryptic message). “It’s going to all make sense ultimately. I solely settle for love.”
FOLLOW ALISON WONDERLAND:
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Twitter: twitter.com/awonderland
Instagram: instagram.com/alisonwonderland
Spotify: spoti.fi/3clhKRg