Dorks And Losers

Sarah Ass­bring some­how makes being a singer/songwriter seem easy. More often than not, these artists strug­gle for years try­ing to break through and get noticed. That’s not to say that Ass­bring or should I say El Perro Del Mar hasn’t worked tremen­dously hard to get to where she is now, it just means that her rise appears effort­less and is enviable.

Of course, hav­ing tal­ent helps.

And El Perro Del Mar seems to have lots of it. Her self-titled debut album (U.S. ver­sion) was a com­pi­la­tion of sorts from her many self-released unof­fi­cial EPs, as well as her offi­cial label released EPs. Far from being stitched together, El Perro Del Mar almost flu­idly com­bined angelic har­monies with creepy lyricisms.

Under­stand­ably, the album lacked some cohe­sion, and that’s partly because the songs (to a point) weren’t made to be with one another. It’s mouth­wa­ter­ing to think about an EPDM album con­ceived to be whole.

From The Val­ley To The Stars doesn’t dis­ap­point and proves that Ass­bring, in her hon­est and fear­less approach to her music, is more mature and more tal­ented than most. She returns with her angelic har­monies and creepy lyri­cisms, but she’s also included a flare of exper­i­men­ta­tion, as seen in the short track times. She never wants to stay in any one moment for too long, but never strays too far from the pre­vi­ous one.

The flu­id­ity in this sopho­more album is remark­able in that even entire tracks can be heard with­out the slight­est hint of them being dif­fer­ent tracks, and even some (“Inside The Golden Egg” and “You Belong To The Sky Now”) with­out hav­ing Assbring’s vocals.

One of the beau­ties of From The Val­ley To The Stars is Assbring’s non-reluctance to always be singing. She puts the music front and cen­ter, and she only enters when she needs to, some­times in the form of sim­ply accen­tu­at­ing the melodies (“Jubilee”).

But she accen­tu­ates the melodies even when she sings because of how com­pli­men­tary her vocals are to the instru­men­tals, espe­cially with the flutes in “Glory To The World,” the synths in the title track, and the sta­tic hum in “Inner Island.”

I can’t help but feel equally uplifted and depressed because of the polar­ity of El Perro Del Mar’s music. In one instance, it can sound heav­enly, and in the other, it can sound down­right gloomy. In that case, I’d say the album title was in the ballpark.

[photo via Johanna Hedborg]

Track list:

1. Jubilee
2. Glory To The World
3. You Can’t Steal A Gift
4. How Did We For­get?
5. Inside The Golden Egg
6. To Give Love
7. Inner Island
8. Do Not Despair
9. Somebody’s Baby
10. The Sun Is An Old Friend
11. Hap­pi­ness Won Me Over
12. From The Val­ley To The Stars
13. You Belong To The Sky Now
14. Into The Sun­shine
15. Some­day I’ll Under­stand (Love Will Be My Mir­ror)
16. Your Name Is Neverending

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