Hazel English Goes for Big and Bright on Wake UP!
Her full-length dream-pop LP sometimes lacks the immediacy of her earlier EPs
Straw-man time: If it’s hard to make a truly bad dream-pop album, it’s equally tricky to make a really good one, and for identical reasons. The essential ingredients are the same in either case. You need reverb, introspection and hazy melodies that evoke ’60s pop. How you fit them together is what makes all the difference.
Australian-born Los Angeles transplant Hazel English puts those elements to use in service of 10 songs that glide by comfortably on her full-length debut, Wake UP!. It’s a respectable enough effort, full of chiming guitars and sleek vocals as English delivers lyrics that parse feelings of isolation and explore power dynamics from romantic relationships to capitalism. Despite the sometimes fraught subject matter, her songs are engaging and pleasant, as well as a reminder to be present and engaged with herself and the world around her. They also feel more fussed-over than the EPs she released in 2016 and 2017, which had an immediacy these songs sometimes lack.
The title track rides along on resonant chugging guitar and a snare-drum part that has the tone of quick bursts of static. English maneuvers through breathy verses to echo herself on the chorus with a refrain she sings in a sweet, clear voice. Elsewhere, she surrounds herself with wordless backing vocals on “Five and Dime,” finger snaps accentuating the beat through the verses. Flickers of bright guitar help propel the chorus, which downshifts into a broad melody that opens up the song and gives it a sense of flow.