Fenne Lily
Breach
Release Date: Sep 18, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Indie Folk
Record label: Dead Oceans
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Breach from Amazon
Album Review: Breach by Fenne Lily
Great, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
An intimate collection of songs about resilience and personal growth, Lily's second album is an acknowledgment of, and antidote to feelings of loneliness and isolation. Conceived primarily during a month-long solo stint in Berlin when she was 21, the Bristol-based songwriter has consciously avoided writing a "breakup record" by allowing herself the space to muse on wider themes of philosophy and self-autonomy, resulting in a deeply moving and poetic new offering. Whether you take Lily's lyrics at face value or opt for a more figurative lens, her ability to tap in to a niche moment is undeniable - whether that's a moment spent extrapolating over love and German philosophy on "I, Nietzsche", smoking until you cough up blood on "Laundry and Jet Lag", or having your heart obliterated by a whirlwind romance on "I Used To Hate My Body But Now I Just Hate You" - her images smack with dark humour, and they're painted with emotional intelligence.
Based on rating 4/5
On 2018 debut 'On Hold', Fenne Lily was "scared to be alone". On its follow-up, she's now attesting "it's not hard to be alone anymore". This lyrical change reflects that seen in Fenne as an artist. She's long had more than a knack for writing heart-wrenchingly honest songs, but 'Breach' sees her unleashed.
Based on rating 7/10
BREACH, English singer/songwriter Fenne Lily’s sophomore record, and Dead Oceans debut, is a stark isolated reflection on her inner life. Written in voluntary isolation (pre-pandemic), Lily displays her anxieties and scars in an album that turns between breathy and intimate acoustic songs and slurred indie rock passages. She expands her songwriting and her musical palette on BREACH, creating a touching picture of herself as an artist.
Based on rating 6.7/10
There comes a time in a disenchanted young man's life when, unbearably stifled by the bourgeois-ness of his bourgeois surroundings--the competitive schools, supportive parents, constant supply of refrigerated whole milk--he pours himself into the collected works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Ask him to pass the salt, and instead you'll receive a long-winded sermon on morality and eternal recurrence. "I get sick on second best/You get off to God is dead," the Bristol singer Fenne Lily sings softly to one such sage on "I, Nietzsche," nailing the dynamic of so many grim exchanges immortalized on the Instagram account Beam Me Up Softboi.
'Breach'
is available now