Starting with “Saturn Returning,” (“I’m gonna dance every day till I’m old / I’m gonna love every inch of my body,”) she starts out with spiritual language, and the rest of the album, much like a Florence and the Machine record, follows suit. Like Lucy Dacus, she often has a discerning eye towards hers and others’ motivations. “While you were loving me / You were suffering / I was dragging out the ending / Because I was sure I wouldn’t get a second round.” And like Feist, there is just so much vocal magic on this album, along with the sometimes subdued, sometimes raucous music surrounding it.

Some songs on the album seem like a response to a relationship that ended and upturned Angie’s life, but I wouldn’t call it a break up record. Whether it’s relationship woes or just life woes, Angie relates well with the phoenix-like experience of life: “I didn’t know then / That out of ash and destruction / The ground will grow things,” she ends the album, which contains the titular phrase, “Light, dark, light again.”

It is an impressive collection of songs, at a fifty minute run time, and you can imagine Angie getting radio airplay for many of these songs, many of which were released as singles in anticipation of the album. “It’s okay, it’s okay / Make mistakes, make mistakes,” is the mantra on the driving, “Letting Go.” On this album, she gives permission to her listeners to live their bumbling lives, but as a pop alternative queen, insists as well “This staying down low is / is no longer fitting you.” It’s ultimately a triumphant album with its share of darker moments. A pop alternative work of art.

order by Light Dark Light Again Album by Angie McMahon HERE