When members of distinctive-sounding bands step out on their own, they risk sounding too much like their main projects, or trying too hard to sound different. Fortunately,
Warpaint's Jenny Lee Lindberg -- billed here as
jennylee -- strikes a good balance between familiar and unique on
Right On!, a set of songs that puts the spotlight on various aspects of her music in an intimate setting. Working with co-producer Norm Block, her
Warpaint bandmate Stella Mozgawa, and Dan Elkan (who has also collaborated with
Broken Bells and Them Hills), Lindberg imbues the album with a late-night spareness full of spaces and silences that allow dreams and memories to bloom. While songs such as the folky closing track "real life" make the bones of her songwriting more apparent than they would be on a
Warpaint album, Lindberg's signature haze is present throughout
Right On! The winding psych of "blind" is earthier here than it would be with her other band, and sensuality is front and center on "he fresh" and "boom boom" in ways that sound raw and fresh. This direct, kinetic approach shines on more driven moments like "never"'s post-punk-pop and "riot," a teeth-bared rocker that rivals the density of
Warpaint's most intense tracks. As on her other project's music,
Right On! is most intriguing when Lindberg swirls sounds and emotions into unexpected new forms. Her cooed threats on "bully" ("you'd better run away and get out of my face") and the anger bubbling just under the pretty surface of "offerings" are challenging, ambiguous, and deserving of close listening. Occasionally,
Right On!'s stripped-down sonics are too restrained for their own good -- "white devil" doesn't have the fuel it needs to truly ignite -- but more often than not, the album offers a welcome glimpse of Lindberg on her own. [
Right On! was also released on LP.] ~ Heather Phares