Arriving four years after Adore Life,
Jehnny Beth's solo debut,
To Love Is to Live, is exactly the kind of work expected from an envelope-pushing, multidisciplinary artist like
Savages' frontwoman, yet it still manages to surprise. In
Beth's eyes, living and loving aren't supposed to be easy -- it's the struggle and risk involved that makes both of them worthwhile. She never lets herself, or her listeners, get too comfortable on
To Love Is to Live. The fearlessness that's driven her work since the John & Jehn days sounds rawer and more potent than ever, whether she's questioning a relationship's intimacy in frank whispers on the unabashedly queer "Flower" or unleashing her wrath on "How Could You," a blistering, industrial-inspired collaboration with
Idles' Joe Talbot.
Beth takes
Savages' fierce independence and knack for breaking their songs wide open to new levels, particularly on "Heroine"'s demanding, commanding fusion of electronic, punk, and jazz. As the album unfolds, however, it becomes clear that her time with that band offered just a glimpse of her art. On
To Love Is to Live, she brings all of her talents as a musician, writer, and actor together in ways that feel true to her. There's a literary quality to the recurring phrases and sounds woven throughout the album, while "We Will Sin Together" and Cillian Murphy's monologue "A Place Above" feel like short stories set to music; not coincidentally,
To Love Is to Live came from the same burst of inspiration that birthed her collection of erotic short stories, Crimes Against Love Memories. Elsewhere, found sounds add cinéma vérité grit to "The Rooms," where street noise and distant voices complete its bone-deep world-weariness, while the album's abrupt and intentionally jarring shifts feel like the musical equivalent of smash cuts. These jolting contrasts echo the complexity within
Beth's songwriting. Danger and sensuality, innocence and independence, and masculinity and femininity exist as extensions of each other, not opposites, on songs such as "I'm the Man," which lurches between shrieking punk fury and yearning balladry. This volatility also mirrors
Beth's passion -- she sounds like she'll die if she can't express herself to the fullest, and when she wails "I'm burning, burning, burning inside" on the ambitious opening salvo "I Am," listeners have no choice but to believe her. While the sheer intensity of moments like these is impressive, the inclusion of a piano ballad as heartfelt and classically beautiful as "The French Countryside" is even more so.
To Love Is to Live is an unabashedly, thrillingly wild ride, and as
Beth throws everything she has at her audience, she fully reveals the multitudes she contains. ~ Heather Phares