Geffen Records
Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter Laufey’s sophomore album “Bewitched,” released on Sept. 8, displays powerful songwriting skills accompanied with soothing vocals and instrumentals. The album contains fourteen unique tracks, and comes a year after Laufey’s debut album “Everything I Know About Love.” Whereas her debut album depicted wide-eyed fantasies about young love, “Bewitched” illustrates a mature, pensive woman reflecting on her lived experiences with heartbreak and longing.
Laufey has described her desire to create modern jazz that is accessible and appealing to a young audience, and the first track “Dreamer,” one of the catchiest songs on the album, is reminiscent of the lively vocals of jazz icons Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. “No boy’s gonna kill the dreamer in me,” she declares, revealing her experienced yet hopeful outlook toward love and setting the tone for her sophomore album.
“[T]he first track “Dreamer,” one of the catchiest songs on the album, is reminiscent of the lively vocals of jazz icons Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday”
In contrast, the next two tracks, “Second Best” and “Haunted,” exemplify Laufey’s classic slow, introspective approach, with “Haunted” adding sensuality through her evocative lyrics. She picks up the pace slightly on “Must Be Love,” with a powerful, echoing chorus that crescendoes each time it is repeated. Both “Must Be Love” and the following track, “While You Were Sleeping,” reveal her sappy romantic side, with Laufey admitting, “I don’t recognize myself / I’m dancing down streets / Smiling to strangers / Idiotic things” in the latter. However, they still fit in with the overall theme of reflecting on lived experiences, a contrast to prior songs like “Beautiful Stranger,” and “Dear Soulmate,” which depict hypothetical scenarios.
After Laufey continues to express disbelief at her own capacity for love on “Lovesick,” she moves on to solemnly reflect on a lover leaving her on “California and Me,” accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra. The album then welcomes the instrumental interlude, “Nocturne.” The orchestral track brings dynamic variations in the piano’s tempo and melody, masterfully weaving in Laufey’s classical music background without interrupting the overall progression of the album.
“Promise” and “From The Start,” were released as the first two singles from the album, and these next two songs stand out for unique reasons. “Promise” delivers provoking lyrics about being unable to let go of love, as the bridge woefully acknowledges “I’ve done the math / There’s no solution / We’ll never last / Why can’t I let go of this?” Meanwhile, “From The Start” is more upbeat and playful, paying homage to the reveries from her debut album as she sings about wishing someone would confess their love for her.
“From The Start” is more upbeat and playful, paying homage to the reveries from her debut album as she sings about wishing someone would confess their love for her”
Then, after a cover of “Misty” by jazz pianist Erroll Garner, and “Serendipity,” about wanting a love to last forever, Laufey reaches the penultimate song of the album, “Letter To My 13 Year Old Self,” a heartfelt and personal song in which she, as the title suggests, advises her teenage self to confidently embrace her identity. Unlike many others, this track hardly has any repetition, truly making it feel like a letter. In contrast to “Falling Behind” from her debut album, about feeling the need to keep up with other people her age who are falling in love, Laufey now advises her younger self, “Another girl’s had her first kiss / Please don’t think too much of it, darling.”
The title track and third single, “Bewitched” concludes the album. With an ethereal chorus depicting how she and her lover “ran down the street in the late London light,” this track is one of the album’s most mesmerizing and perfectly sums up the contemplative tone of the album.
