Love As Projection

Frankie Rose

Slumberland, 2023

http://www.frankierose.info

REVIEW BY: Vish Iyer

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 10/11/2024

In keeping with her trend of changing it up with every album, Frankie Rose‘s fifth solo release Love As Projection goes on a different musical journey than her previous efforts.

Rose goes all in on an outright synth based sound for this record. However, this is far from one of those synth pop revival albums. Rose’s previous release was a song by song cover of The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds, in which she gives the synth drenched gloomy sound of the original album a modern facelift, which some might find better than the original.my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

So, yes, Rose is not only a fan of eighties music, but she paid the greatest homage to it! Therefore, she can certainly take the route that plenty of bands have taken and turned her desire to make synth-based music into a retro revival record…and she won't do a shabby job doing so either!

But Rose does “synth” her own way (and fans will love her for it). Love As Projection is spacey and atmospheric. More often than not, the synths aren't used to make upbeat pop music, but music that's more chill. The strongest numbers on the record have this mood, like “Feel Light” and “Molotov In Stereo”. Also, “Doa” with its industrial rhythm and airy guitar-synth combination gives the album’s atmospheric sound a head-bopping twist. Finally, the closing track “Song For A Horse” the album’s quietest and most gorgeous number, ends the journey through Love As Projection utterly blissfully.

However, Rose’s chosen musical style for this record fumbles on “Saltwater Girl,” with its prosaic synths and beats that are spiffy on the outside but dull on the inside. The gleefully upbeat “Anything” is a great throwback number sharing DNA with The Cure, but is a tad derivative coming from Frankie Rose.

With this album’s atmospheric synth-dominated sound, the glorious shimmering guitars that everyone is familiar with from Rose’s prior releases is missed; so are spunky elements of her earlier music. But the addictively dancy “Sixteen Ways?” and “Come Back” make it seem like nothing is missing at all.

And not much is missing from this album after all. Love As Projection doesn't conjure as much awe as Rose’s pièce de résistance Cage Tropical; but brings just as much joy!

Rating: A-

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