Faye Webster - Underdressed At The Symphony

Faye Webster has never been about grandiose displays of emotion, and the singer-songwriter’s fifth full-length, ‘Underdressed At The Symphony’, leans more on mood than story. At times, it echoes the textural delights of The War On Drugs, while simple hooks are transformed by shimmery pedal steel and twinkling piano. Opener ‘Thinking About You’, with its subtle flourishes and gradual builds, is a six-and-a-half minute stunner; the slow burn of ‘Lifetime’ equally so, shuffling along to emphasise the space between each moment. But both feature Faye repeating the track’s title for much of its run time. Where repetition works on the short but sweet ‘Right Side Of My Neck’ - the emotion behind that line twisting with each reading - here, with both tracks over five minutes, it feels mostly uninspired, instead leaving the crying pedal steel to pick up the emotional slack.

Thankfully, parts of ‘Underdressed At The Symphony’ do still show her as a lyricist with an astonishing emotional clarity. ‘But Not Kiss’ digs into the complex nature of intimacy: the contradictions, the uncertainties, the idea that simple acts can have just a much weight as the bigger ones, for good and for bad. “I want to see you in my dreams / But then forget,” she croons - an arrow to the heart, shot with deadly precision. Faye has often used humour as a shield, with her saddest moments always having felt like they’re accompanied by a cry-laughing emoji. But ‘Underdressed At The Symphony’ feels like a contradiction that doesn’t work as smoothly. While it does see Faye and her band at their most musically warm and open - nearly every track is a devastating beauty - lyrically she feels more closed off than ever before.