There's an arresting quality to Lizzy McAlpine's music, one that holds you in the moment and makes you aware of the air in the room. It's that soft, encompassing sound that she explores on her debut full-length, 2022's Five Seconds Flat. Purportedly recorded after a difficult breakup, the album has the warm intimacy of talking to your best friend on the phone late at night. McAlpine's voice is a shimmering, delicate whisper, and her songs feel just as tender, like diary entries or bittersweet confessions posted to a blog. She has a knack for picking out the seemingly mundane details of an experience that, in retrospect, become totems for deeper emotions. On "All My Ghosts" she sings, "We made sangria and failed/I spilled mac and cheese on my pants/And thought about kissing you underneath kitchen lights." It's a poetic quality, imbued with a raw heartache, as on "Chemtrails," a song about the death of her father where she admits, "I still listen to that band that you showed me last April." Fans who discovered her online, or with 2021's equally intimate When the World Stopped Moving: The Live EP will find much to connect with here. Folky anthems like "All My Ghosts," "Ceilings," "Doomsday," and "Called You Again" are gorgeously rendered with woody acoustic guitars offset by piano, buzzy electric guitar accents, and the occasional crescent moon spiral of synth. We also get nicely curated guest spots from FINNEAS, Jacob Collier, Laura Elliott, and Ben Kessler. Thankfully, none of this detracts from McAlpine, whose quietly candid intensity remains a constant throughout all of Five Seconds Flat. Doomsday 4:28An Ego Thing 2:50Erase Me 3:34Called You Again 3:12All My Ghosts 3:17Reckless Driving 3:09Weird 3:29Ceilings 3:02What A Shame 2:48Firearm 3:02Hate To Be Lame 2:36Nobody Likes A Secret 1:48Chemtrails 3:57Orange Show Speedway 3:46
