Meadowlark's Debut "Postcards" Is Beautifully Raw

Achieving the right amount of simplicity and rawness is a difficult balance to play with, but there are those artists that manage to do it just right. A new duo on the block - Meadowlark - has managed to achieve just that right balance right off the bat. Meadowlark's debut Postcards is beautifully raw, finding the perfect emotions in its relative simplicity.

Postcards kicks off with a very warm and vintage sound. 'Headlights' brings the album to its sunny start as a tape winds up, the synth crying out as the beat pounds and Kat McGill's smooth vocals and sweet melodies. It's a truly peaceful track that comes with its own little story, the chorus pondering "Oh my god, I've been looking back / Did I say I love you," as a sort of innocent and cute scene plays out. The warm rays of 'Sunlight' follow up with a similarly sweet sentiment, the instrumental really blissful and shines with happiness. 'Pink Heart' continues the trend, this time a more lonely instrumental akin to a twenty one pilots song plays beneath the message.

Postcards is an album about remembering a love story through old pictures, but it's not at all somber. Perhaps the concept of it is a bit bittersweet, but its message is sweet in execution. It's an album meant to be happy when absorbing it, then perhaps in the aftermath thinking of what could have been. You sort of forget that afterthought with songs like 'Paraffin,' the blissful atmosphere making it impossible for anything but a dreamy romance to take up your imagination.

There really aren't any lowpoints on the album. It's pretty hard to find a weakness in an album that has a very tight control of what it's trying to accomplish. From the stripped down piano track 'That's Life' to the laidback conclusion in 'Postcards,' there's little to nothing that goes wrong on Postcards. The record even finds time for a strong anthemic song, the dark build of 'Undercover' sounding huge at the end of the record.

Meadowlark really hit it out of the park with this one. With a clear focus and a strong grasp on what they wanted to do, Meadowlark's debut Postcards is beautifully raw and tells a heartwarming story, even leaving you with an afterthought once it finishes. The future has good things in store for this act.

Favorite Tracks: Paraffin, Headlights, Undercover

Last Favorite Track: Eyes Wide

Rating: 89 / 100

Stream or buy Postcards on Apple Music: