ALBUM REVIEW: MEAN LADY’S ” LOVE NOW”

Anyone familiar with the Delaware scene knows Mean Lady. Ever since they first appeared with their electronic brand of indie-pop, the duo of Katie Dill and Sam Nobles have become household names. For the last couple of years, the group has been hard at work, playing stages large and small across the country,  garnering a loyal and supportive fan base. And now, two years after first coming together, the duo has finally released their first full-length album.

  Mean Lady’s “Love Now,” recorded and produced by the band and mastered by Possum Records, presents a good-spirited and straightforward example of what is possible in today’s musical landscape. In nine short tracks, it provides a platform for the band to transcend the local scene as they break into the national mainstream. Promoted by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and shared ubiquitously on Facebook,  it has also received constant play and praise from the online community. Employing the surreal soup of sounds known to longtime Delaware fans, the record stands as an artistic product geared exclusively to the young and trendy. The end result, however, is tastefully achieved without any traces of pretentiousness or exclusivity. 

“Love Now” presents the listener with a sensibility that recalls the naivete associated with an earlier time. Centered around love songs, the album is hopeful and optimistic. This is shown through musical arrangements with influences in folk, ’80s pop, and R&B. Employing lush curtains of electronic sounds that weave a neo-psychedelic musical narrative, the record’s heart lies somewhere between the unique delivery of Dill’s vocals and the soothing rhythms delivered by Nobles.

Beginning with the R&B-forward “Big Family” and ending with the tear-jerking “I will Marry you” – a solemn acoustic version of the band’s first hit “Far Away”- the album is consistent in its presentation of Love. “Love Now’s” theme is carefully explored through the prism of traditional relationships, the power of friendship, and the care which the band put into the making of the record. The contrast between the youthful optimism found in Dill’s vocals and the tragic inevitability heard in the songs’ lyrics, is perhaps the most potent and beautiful facet of the whole experience. For it presents Love for what it is: a fragile and delicate thing, and something which once experienced one can not do without. A master storyteller, Dill examines the human condition, and more importantly, the loneliness and longing that define it in every track.

Few records today have such a hypnotic effect on the listener. In an age where apathy and irony are in vogue, the songs on the album still come off as fresh and believable, as they invite the listener to embrace their surroundings. For proof, one need not go farther than the closing lines of the opening number, in which Dill soothingly reminds the listener that with ” a helping hand from a friend, it will be better in the end.”