Lia Ices' creative journey has been winding and eventful. The singer/songwriter emerged out of Brooklyn in the mid-2000s with lush and distant piano-based balladry that was sad but captivating. Her second album featured guest contributions from
Bon Iver's
Justin Vernon and her third found her pivoting to more electronic production and fun, catchy pop. After that third LP in 2014,
Ices disappeared for a time, leaving the East Coast for the West and shifting her focus from music to family. Her fourth set of songs,
Family Album, returns somewhat to the melancholic piano songs of her earlier albums, but adds to them a hint of psychedelia and a more present and grounded lyrical perspective.
Ices was pregnant with her first child when she began writing
Family Album, and the atmosphere of the record is very much in line with the emotional landscapes experienced by expectant first-time parents. Where
Ices' earlier songs felt suspended in a melancholic tension, here she sounds calm and clearheaded, but open to whatever direction her songs end up following. First track "Earthy" sets this tone, starting with a simple arrangement of piano and vocals that opens up unexpectedly into a full-band romp, complete with greasy wah-wah guitar and jangly percussion.
Family Album's psychedelic touches are decidedly Californian, with elements like the sunset-hued guitar leads on "Hymn" and the cavernous space echo that coats the
Beatlesque "Anywhere at All" evoking images of Pacific Ocean beaches and mountain ranges. Many of the album's songs share the circuitous melodic character of
Joanna Newsom's 2010 masterpiece
Have One on Me, using combinations of chord progressions and melody lines that shift unpredictably and move in strange, unresolving patterns. On tracks like "Beauty Blue" and album standout "Young on the Mountain,"
Ices combines this melodic approach with more direct pop hooks, splitting the difference between obtuse verses that ponder her place in the universe and the satisfaction of a catchy chorus. Despite the years between
Family Album and the material that preceded it, the record represents significant growth for
Ices. It's full of serious expressions that never feel overly heavy, and songs that communicate themes of naturalistic love and new life without resorting to cloying preciousness. Throughout
Family Album,
Ices is inspired, renewed, and at peace with the natural world. The nine songs that result as a byproduct of that peace are beautiful and unclouded in a way that
Ices reached for but never quite achieved on earlier albums. ~ Fred Thomas