In 2019, California singer/songwriter
Allie Crow Buckley made her recording debut with an EP (So Romantic) that led to concert opening slots for the likes
Jenny Lewis and
Maggie Rogers. Produced by
Buckley and returning producers
Jason Boesel (
Rilo Kiley) and
Mike Viola (
Candy Butchers), her full-length debut,
Moonlit and Devious, features a song she co-wrote with
Sharon Van Etten ("God Medallion"). The track "Nothing Sacred" opens the album with a bit of swagger and a gaping interval between rumbling synth bass and drums and
Buckley's voice, as she employs mythological metaphors to explore the notion of destiny regarding a night out drinking and dancing ("Is this all part of some plan?/Living out some prophecy lifetimes in the making?"). The similarly synth rock-minded "Gold Medallion" adorns a spacious arrangement with blasts of distorted guitar and staccato keys as
Buckley addresses an object of affection with a critical eye. Those tracks are among the more assertive ones on an album that makes equal space for the hypnotically reflective, including two instrumental interludes that appear about a third and two-thirds of the way through the track list. On the dreamier end, the shimmery, yearning title track has notes of dark metal without leaving the realm of adult alternative, and the set closes on two meditative entries with their own touches of dissonance, "Under the Sun" (which makes reference to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice) and "Taming Shadows." The latter is a hushed keyboard ballad that tries to make the case for destiny once and for all: "I've been taming shadows to prove a point/To prove that I am some sort of conduit for the cosmic/That I can be exactly what you need." Dramatic and intimate at once,
Moonlit and Devious demands attention despite its dreamy disposition. ~ Marcy Donelson