Clairo - Sling Review
Despite a couple of bumps in the song-writing and pacing, Sling sees a huge progression in Clairo’s sound, offering us a quietly beautiful singer-songwriter record that officially graduates her from the bedroom pop that defined her early years in the limelight.
Almost out of nowhere, Clairo was thrust into the limelight after her breakout single ‘Pretty Girl’ blew up on YouTube, with people falling in love with its simplicity and DIY aesthetic. It was the track that more-or-less defined the bedroom pop era to follow, leading to the somewhat short-lived rise of artists like Boy Pablo, Cuco and Gus Dapperton. Unlike these other artists, Clairo has been rather successful in riding this wave, with the success of her debut album, 2019’s Immunity, which showed growth from that sound — but without outright abandoning it. This new album, however, makes a much bigger aesthetic jump, settling closer to the music of Joni Mitchell, with poetic lyrics and production from Jack Antanoff creating a much more fully realised and mature sophomore than I would have expected.
Indeed, the lyrics on this album are probably the most impressive part, reading beautifully even without the music – they really speak for themselves. On the opener, ‘Bambi’, Clairo talks about the struggles of being thrust into the music industry at such a young age, feeling like she had little control over the creative process. The lyrics really convey a feeling of smallness, contrasting with the excitement she should feel with the offer of a record deal, taking a novel, nuanced and self-aware approach to a somewhat classic sophomore album topic. Themes of motherhood, relationships with family and mental health permeate through the lyrics throughout the album, the latter of which really comes to the fore on the particularly moving ‘Just For Today’, which references phoning a suicide hotline and taking time out to focus on her mental health. It’s almost chillingly personal, but the candidness of these references is also so important in normalising mental health discussion.
‘Amoeba’, the second track on the album, shows off the production on this album too, as it manages to be both groovy and understated, danceable yet close and comforting. The instrumental here is beautiful, with the string bends and dancing piano swirling around Clairo’s vocals, perfectly in harmony, injecting much-needed energy at this point. The lyrics here look at times when energy and effort are put in the wrong directions, such as chasing someone with whom it’s not meant to be, going to parties you don’t really want to go to, and ending up neglecting your family in the process. Another production highlight is the dreamy ‘Wade’, creating a warm and cosy sound, complementing the almost lullaby-like vocals. While allowing it to feel personal like singer-songwriter music should, both tracks manage to find some grandeur – which is a difficult balance to find.
However, there are some bumps in the road here – though the grievances are relatively minor. ‘Zinnias’, despite creating a love coming-of-age vibe, has a rather jarring transition from guitar solo to whispered vocals; ‘Joanie’, while bringing in some energy after several slower tracks, just isn’t quite interesting enough to justify being an instrumental; and ‘Reaper’, which has some unique and poetic lyrics, sounds a little generic on the production side. There is still room for growth in Clairo’s music, but she’s at least managed to push that room into the corner, with issues really only being small nit-picks.
The bittersweet ‘Harbor’ is another particularly big highlight on the record, a song that recounts the feelings after ending a long-term one-sided relationship – evoking the parts of the relationship that she’ll miss while also seeing a need to move on for her own wellbeing. Like many of the tracks here, it’s immensely personal without it feeling like it’s oversharing, but it’s still really easy to connect with the strange sense of loneliness in such an intimate relationship while the other person refuses to give themselves fully to it. The vocals on the latter half of the track are also rather angelic, accompanied by a beautiful, melancholic piano melody. The way that it builds, though, really makes it feel as if it should be the closer.
The actual closer, ‘Management’, does still feel right in that place, particularly thematically as it seems to focus on prioritising herself after a toxic relationship. Again, it builds beautifully, giving a sort of soft crescendo with a slightly dreamy, harmonised palate, making for one of the real instrumental highlights of the album.
If I were to have guessed where Clairo would go from her break-out bedroom pop singles, I possibly could have predicted the sound of the diary 001 EP, and maybe even some of the cuts from her debut Immunity. For a two-year gap, it’s almost difficult to believe the jump in songwriting and maturity to get to Sling, in which Clairo sounds wise way beyond her years and the production is much more polished. There are still some issues, the pace dragging a little towards the end of the record, and some lyrics which just didn’t quite scan with the melody, but overall any problems I may have had are instantly overshadowed by the album’s beauty.
