SOUNDTRACK REVIEW: Kid Reno - In Your Dreams

Kid Reno's soundtrack to Laura Obermeyer's short film In Your Dreams is a successful artistic detour that captures a new kind of beauty in Reno's music.

Reviewed by Alex "Ash" Han

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a review that was originally written in early 2023, but due to various unforeseen challenges (read: life) remained unpublished until today! Although the project has been out for upwards of a year at this point, I want to remind you all to support Kid Reno and stream the project! The links to the project can be found via Kid Reno's Linktree. My previous review of Kid Reno's preceding LP, Techno for Children and Dogs, can be found here!

 

Also, don't forget to check out the film for which the soundtrack was written! Laura Obermeyer's In Your Dreams is available to watch on YouTube.

 

FOR THOSE OF US IN MUSIC TECHNOLOGY, the prospect of eventually finding work in the film industry is not an unrealistic one, and in many ways, us musicians are just as tied to the world of film as we are to the world of music. Our skills as audio engineers are in heavy demand, and the fact that our graduation requirements stipulate that all of us must take Audio for Video serves as further proof of this; in my own time in Audio for Video, I actually seemed to have somewhat of a knack for ADR and even Foley, which was a pleasant surprise! In my time in MTech, I've seen a healthy amount of undergraduates come out of that Audio for Video course and start working on student productions all over campus, armed with a newfound passion for the world of film music. That said, I myself still have yet to take a gander at actually composing original music for a film; it seems like a decidedly scary endeavor I haven't plucked up the courage to attempt yet. Thus, when Reno Haas told me he was working on the score for Laura Obermeyer's short film In Your Dreams, I found myself rather excited for him—not least because I was hyped to see him gain some work experience in this context, but also because I was secretly very intrigued to see how the brand of off-the-wall, high-octane techno-house I associate with Kid Reno would translate to a film scoring setting.

 

I went into this soundtrack album unsure of what to expect, and sure enough, the result I got was certainly very interesting! Kid Reno's soundtrack to In Your Dreams marks a significant artistic departure from the established sound of the Renoverse. Whereas Reno's previous body of work, the full-length LP Techno for Children & Dogs, was defined by its heady, spirited, and wildly energetic techno sound, In Your Dreams embraces a softer, more ethereal aesthetic, resulting in a collection of songs that skirts significantly closer to alternative pop and indie rock territory than anything I've heard from Reno so far. The new sound is hugely fitting in context; I also watched In Your Dreams, the film, in preparation for this review, which I very much enjoyed. The film plays like a cross between a skiing stunt montage and an extended music video in which director Laura Obermeyer follows the thrill-seeking adventures of a group of female skiers; coupling some genuinely insane stunts with beautiful footage of the Utah Rockies, I thought the film was a wonderfully endearing piece of work that captured a really special bond and mutual camaraderie between the group of friends depicted in the film. Reno's music underscores a good portion of the film's runtime, and makes for a wonderful, emotionally impactful addition; Reno's sweeping, majestic soundtrack manages to capture both the desolate beauty of the Utah backcountry as well as the adrenaline-filled, youthful exultation of tearing down the mountainside alongside friends cheering you on. In short, while I think In Your Dreams works best when consumed alongside its parent film, it's still an incredibly enjoyable body of music in its own right, and it makes for an excellent showcase of the kind of head-spinning creativity only Reno can pull off.

 

"I reached out to [Reno] about using some of their music back in 2020, when the project was first taking shape. Since then, they've become my best friend and biggest supporter during the process of making the movie." –Laura Obermeyer, director of In Your Dreams

 

We begin with "Aetherian (Intro)", a one-minute intro track which opens up the album on an icy, reverb-heavy synth pad that feels like a bird's eye view soaring over the snowcapped alpines of the Rockies; this synth pad soon becomes layered amidst other pads that convey a similarly spacious feeling as a spoken-word poetry sample enters over the top and a heavenly, blue-tinted synth lead plays a sparse, major key melody. I thought Reno's sound selection was absolutely perfect here; he conveys the cinematic buildup of this moment extremely well without hitting the listener over the head with a wall of sound, and the soundscape manages to feel immense and vast without being overstuffed with elements, which I thought made for a nice parallel with the duality of In Your Dreams' mountain-range setting: vertigo-inducing heights and towering peaks juxtaposed with huge empty space in between. I haven't been skiing in a long time, but for me, this track felt like the moment just before pushing off from the peak, like standing at the top of the mountain and taking in the view for a second before beginning the thrilling plunge downward into the rest of the soundtrack. "Aetherian (Intro)" was a wonderful way to set the stage, both on this album and in the actual film, and I thought it made an excellent showcase for Reno's expertise in sound selection and design.

 

 

Pictured above: Kid Reno (left) and Doggy Collar (right) performing together at Moodring on April 19th, 2024. Photograph by me.
 

The second track, titled "giribaldi's party (street) [kill the landlord]", begins with a muffled, distorted sung vocal sample that leads us into an electronic indie four-on-the-floor drum groove propelled by a crunchy snare and glassy hi-hats. We're dropped right into a killer chorus, led by digitized and slightly robotic-sounding feminine vocals in two-part harmony; I couldn't quite make out the lyrics underneath all the processing, but the melody and the chord progression combine for a lethally catchy combination that kept me tapping my feet and enthusiastically mumbling along! Reno also does some really nice work meshing together caterwauling synthesizers alongside a ripping electric guitar melody in a combination that feels impressively natural. The ensuing amalgamation sees Reno's uniquely edgy sound design and electronic/dance-centric sensibilities recontextualized inside of a pop-oriented framework, which is a combination I hadn't expected to enjoy so much! After the first chorus, we lapse into an arpeggiated tonic bass line and a subdued, moody vocal refrain of "don't listen to girls when they want you" that makes this section almost feel like an edgier, crunchier take on Billie Eilish. From here, Reno gifts us one more screaming, soaring chorus before the track ends. I feel compelled to once again revive my most common (albeit slightly tongue-in-cheek) criticism of Techno for Children and Dogs here and point out Reno's tendency to gift us hugely catchy tracks that I feel end too soon, and "giribaldi's party" is no exception! I feel like I could have listened to this track for another verse or two and not gotten bored. For what it's worth, though, the two minutes of runtime we did get were super enjoyable, and Reno's zany production hit as hard as always here.

 

The short, 37-second "Aetherian [Overture]" follows next, reviving the frosty synth lead from the intro track and pairing it with a set of loosely vocal-sounding synth pads that make me picture wind blowing through massive, resonant stone pipes on a mountainside somewhere (almost like the stone statues from "SpongeHenge"… never thought I'd make a Spongebob reference on this blog like this!) in a combination that takes us right back to the mountaintops. I love the little vocal notes and synth textures that periodically ornament the soundscape; otherwise, we stay on a simple major triad for the duration of the piece, which gave this short track a decidedly ambient feel. For whatever reason, the master seems to be really quiet on this track, and came in several decibels lower than the previous track, which did diminish the impact of the track's opening for me somewhat.

 

Pictured above: Kid Reno spinning at Kittypool, a party that took place at Ginger's on April 19th into the early morning of the 20th, raising funds for the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. Photograph by me.

 

"I Remember the Gloves On Your Hands [british columbia]" opens with a snippet of the same poetry sample that kicked off the album in "Aetherian (intro)", looped and progressively mangled more and more until it becomes unrecognizable. A heavy synth bass overlays itself with a bass guitar and peppy, doubled major key vocals as the track's instrumental comes crashing in; this song is based on Finom's "Water", a track which is heavily sampled and augmented with Reno's trademark, hard-edged electronicisms. It sounds to me like Reno's added additional synth parts and drums, which layer over each other and interweave themselves seamlessly into the original track's squealing, doubled electric guitars. As the track builds to its peak, Reno layers multiple drum kits over each other, combining a halftime drum pattern with another drum pattern at regular tempo to create a sideways-listing groove that takes us to the climax, wherein the vocalist asks "why is there water in my eyes?" over and over again through an increasingly unhinged vocal timbre as the drums bang out tumultuous, complex fills and the guitars articulate some heavy, chromatic metal riffs. We emerge from this brief moment of chaos as the track collapses back into the major key and ethereal, panned, staggered vocals close out the track in a decidedly heavenly manner. In the end, I ended up not being a massive fan of this track; I think the original track sampled here might have had a bit too much presence in the final mix, and I would have loved to hear Reno add more elements and mess with the sample some more to create something that felt more congruent with the wild creativity I normally associate with his music. Nonetheless, though, I do love the additions Reno made to the track, and I think in context with the rest of the soundtrack, it works well.

 

The fifth track, "In Your Dreams [freeride]", opens with some distant vocal notes hidden behind a layer of reverb and crackle, which lead us into a heavy arpeggiated bassline and faraway indie electronic drums; the overall vibe of this section is distinctly meditative and astral, and loosely reminds me of late 2000's retro-influenced indie synthpop acts like MGMT and Passion Pit. This track marks another point in the album where I grew really impressed with Reno's sound design, as he once again manages to evoke the lonely, hyperborean, windswept beauty of the Utah wilderness through a meticulous combination of scintillating, far-flung vocal chops and icy, howling reverb. I'm not in love with the mix on this track; the bass arpeggiator comes through kinda loud and masks over the drums, which end up feeling somewhat obscured and distant throughout the song, resulting in a pulse that felt sort of indistinct. Maybe the bass-heavy mix is an intentional creative choice, but even so, I felt like it detracted (albeit just a tad) from the listener's ability to latch onto the rest of the instrumental and appreciate its beauty. Nonetheless, though, the vibe of this track is absolutely there, and it channels the imagery of the Utah mountains exceptionally well.

 

After the brief, twelve-second "some[interlude] (where)", which I thought was a serious candidate for the most cleverly named album interlude I've seen in a hot minute, we segue into "In Your Dreams [director's cut]", a reprise/alternative cut of the title track that gives us a longer, more drawn-out intro and a different, slower-paced arrangement that sees us spend more time in drumless territory, led by ethereal and dreamy (get it? because it's… in your dreams) synth arps, majestic vocal chops, and a slowly-building kick drum. After a long buildup, we drop into a sparse drum pattern with plenty of hard-panned elements and gated reverb; the resulting vibe feels much clearer and more polished than the earlier "In Your Dreams [freeride]", and perhaps more indebted to the stark, reverb-heavy minimalism of the 1980s than the computerized electro retro-fantasy emulation of the 2000s. I really love this alternative version of "In Your Dreams", as it embraces a much more wide-open aesthetic that feels like it gives the track a lot more room to breathe, and all of Reno's little bits of ear candy and production choices get space to shine. Reno even gives us a totally new drum pattern during the track's final moments before letting the creatively-arranged vocal chops take us out.

The final track, "outer(bonus track) [limits]", feels like a loose nod to the aesthetic of Techno for Children & Dogs, mixed with a healthy amount of retro synthpop to boot! The track opens with some celestial synth pads alongside some pitched & mangled spoken vocal samples layered on top of one another to form a chattering chorus of voices; the aesthetic of this moment felt very much like Dog Collar's Jungle Fairy Tale EP from last December for me, as well as being a callback of sorts to Reno's sample-based roots. A fast-paced, building synth arp takes us into the drop, which gives us a synthpop 2/4 drum groove complete with pounding toms and a bright, animated major key melody swallowed behind a veil of reverb and delay. Reno does some entertaining stuff with the drum programming on this track, swapping out the established rhythm for a D&B-esque double-time groove and regularly subtracting and re-adding elements for a consistently dynamic feel. In contrast to the rest of the soundtrack, "outer" felt like a means for Reno to freely express his own artistry outside of the context of the film, and its aesthetic feels a lot more electronic and synth-heavy than the rest of the album does. On the whole, I thought it made for a strong addition to the record, and it was a nice way to end things off with a fun extra track!

"Reno executed my challenging vision and intense direction with impeccable grace and attention to detail, particularly on the last track. Sampling the children's choir song used in the early interlude as an "intro into the dream sequence", the final track… brings the viewer back in to end the experience in the same space… Reno spent hours and hours on FaceTime with me while I sat in isolation over the summer staring at my computer screen, and helped shape the creation of In Your Dreams into what it is in a big, big way. Forever grateful for this one." –Laura Obermeyer, director of In Your Dreams

 

At the end of the day, this album really threw me on first listen. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about the new sound, especially in comparison to Reno's previous works. I felt like there wasn't as much in the way of cool production tricks and sheer harebrained creativity for me to grab onto as there had been on Techno for Children & Dogs, which consistently threw new sounds and progressively expanding ideas at me for pretty much the whole duration of its runtime. Additionally, I developed another point of contention with this record, which mainly has to do with the mixing and mastering. Mixes on tracks like "I Remember the Gloves On Your Hands [british columbia]" and "In Your Dreams [freeride]" feel a tad unbalanced to me, and the sampled preexisting sounds don't always feel totally congruent with the new instrumentation Reno's added. Additionally, I felt like the mastering work was a bit uneven in terms of level; "outer(bonus track) [limits]" and "giribaldi's party (street) [kill the landlord]" sounded significantly louder than the other tracks on the record, and I found myself having to constantly adjust my monitors while listening to the project in order to maintain a consistent listening level, resulting in my feeling a bit like I had to arm wrestle with Spotify in order to hear the music at an appreciable volume without damaging my own hearing!

 

All that said—while In Your Dreams was definitely a curveball of sorts, and it subverted my preconceived notions of what I should expect from a Kid Reno album in a big way, I ended up coming away from it with a newfound love for the music. Despite the fact that Reno's previous penchant for serrated, edgy, unapologetically breakneck electronic dancefloor bangers is mostly absent from this new soundtrack, and is replaced with a more mellow aesthetic that takes us away from the nightclub floor and sends us deep into nature, I found myself quite taken with this new collection of songs. That said, it took me until I'd gotten around to actually watching In Your Dreams, the film, before it really clicked for me. Though the emphasis on the spirit of dance is definitely toned down a bit, Reno's sound design and selection is no less integral to the final product here, as his carefully-chosen synth patches and sample choices manage a truly impressive evocation of cold mountain air and snowcapped bluffs that for me is impossible to divorce from the film's strikingly beautiful imagery. Whereas Reno's existing work in the sphere of techno is more about making the listener want to dance, I feel like In Your Dreams is less about providing suitable background music for a dance floor and more about celebrating youth, companionship, and the process of finding joy. Laura Obermeyer's artistic vision has a lot to do with that, of course, and I'm not sure Reno's soundtrack would evoke these deep, thought-provoking themes for me without Laura's kinetic, sweeping cinematography and expert direction. In short, the soundtrack captures something very special to me, and communicates the imagery of its parent film as if it's an aural painting of friendship. And even beyond the context of the film, the album brings us some relentlessly catchy pop earworms that even now remain stuck in my head, looping over and over, proving that Reno can absolutely bring his uncompromisingly ingenious production and excel within the sphere of vocal music—so I suppose at the end of this review, the only complaint I have that matters is that I wish Reno gave us more songs like the ones on this album, and I wouldn't complain if these songs were to signal a broader artistic shift towards a more pop-adjacent sound for Kid Reno! In Your Dreams thus becomes an earnestly beautiful, ferociously creative body of work that made me develop a newfound appreciation for Kid Reno's artistic prowess and versatility, and as always, I remain ever more excited for what he does next, whether we return to the dance floor to headbang until the sun rises, or forge ever deeper into the icy mountain wilderness, that exciting uncharted territory where we make new friends and celebrate life.

Personal enjoyment score: 8 out of 10

 

Standout tracks: "giribaldi's party (street) [kill the landlord]", "In Your Dreams [director's cut]", "outer(bonus track) [limits]"

ALBUM REVIEW: Sophie Yera - Final Girl

Sophie Yera's Final Girl is a swirling, atmospheric alt-pop extravaganza that makes for a compelling debut.

Reviewed by Alex "Ash" Han

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As always, before reading this review, please support Sophie Yera and stream Final Girl! Sophie's Linktree contains links where you can stream the project on all platforms.

 

I WAS A STRANGER TO THE MUSIC of Sophie Yera until we crossed paths (albeit as strangers, at least at the time) in a listening session two or three semesters ago, in what was then called Collegium. It was there that Sophie's version of the Gnarls Barkley track "Crazy" first saw the light of day. As a listener at the time, I remembered being intrigued by the decision to open one's introduction to the MTech community with a cover song, but also being no less impressed by the radical restructuring of the track into a rendition that felt very much unique. I believe it was the following semester (or maybe the following academic year? Jesus, I'm getting old & my memory's slipping) when Sophie made her debut on the MTech Invasion stage at last November's Invasion 2.0, followed by a sequel appearance just last month at Invasion 3. On both occasions, she showcased a strong stage presence marked by a high-fashion aesthetic and a plaintive vocal style, accompanied by enticing glimpses into the material which today finds itself at the focus of this article. Sophie Yera's debut LP, Final Girl, comes three years after her 2021 4-song EP Bad Trip. At a compact seven tracks in length, the album was nonetheless accompanied by an impressive promotional effort, consisting of not only both Invasion performances but also a sizeable Instagram promo run that drew plenty of attention from inside MTech. Having remained mostly unfamiliar with Sophie's music outside of the limited exposure I'd had from sharing the stage with her at Invasion, I went into this project more intrigued than anything to see how her live stage presence would translate to the studio, and just what that would mean for how listeners would begin to perceive Sophie Yera as an artist.

The LP opens with "Crazy", a swirling, atmospheric reinterpretation of the 2006 Gnarls Barkley classic. Sophie brings an airy, disaffected vocal performance over luscious synth pads and a steady sub bass—definitely a heavy vibe switch from the original's spaghetti-Western string samples and dusty drum groove. The song's structure also appears to have been altered slightly, with an extra prechorus added near the beginning, introducing a steady four-on-the-floor kick drum augmented by some distant reverb. On first listen, I wasn't sure I was a fan of the slow burn restructuring of the track; I found that I missed the relentless, pounding momentum of the Gnarls Barkley original, and the vocals had a slightly telephonic, sibilant quality to them that I didn't love. Right before the track's chorus, though, there is a moment where Sophie's lead vocal trails off into nothing as the pads hang in the air a bit and the kick pulse fades away into a reverby soup—the track lets us breathe for just a second or two before the drums come crashing in and Sophie's distorted, keening belt roars into focus. The beat drop on this track goes super hard; I love the sound selection of the giant, cinematic pads and the pseudo-trap drums that harken back to the dusty, apocalyptic quality of the original song. Sophie's vocal sound is also really nice here, fed through a distorted amp sim that gives enough harshness and character to really advance the unhinged, off-the-rails nature of the performance without sacrificing too much intelligibility. This one chorus is all we get, however, as the track soon drops into its outro section, buoyed by an octave-shifted vocal that takes us down and out of the song. As much respect as I do have for the decision to open the album with a reinterpretation of a song that is as much of a timeless classic as this one is, I found Sophie's take on the song to be novel and tasteful, keeping the track's meteoric chorus and rapturous atmosphere while also radically reformatting its structure to accommodate the long buildup and cathartic drop into the chorus. I did feel as though the engineering on this track left a little to be desired—the mix feels a little hollow, with plenty of sub bass and an abundance of high-end frequency content, but without much in the way of low mids to fill the track out and give it a solid foundation. Nonetheless, the track does make for a strong opener, albeit one that left me curious to hear what Sophie's own writing would bring to the album's narrative & style on subsequent tracks.

A steady kick drum and distorted, trippy synth bass opens the album's second track, "Crystal Lake", which also features contributions from Space Hotel. Sophie contributes a number of stacked layers—a distant, legato series of backing vocals, a breezy, apathetic lead vocal, several almost-intelligible whispers that tease the listener with snatches of lyrics here and there. I was really struck by the sound design on this track, which combines retro, warm, slightly wobbly synth patches with punchy, modern, in-your-face drums to create a convincingly vintage horror-movie-like atmosphere. Sophie's delivery here reminds me of a cross between Elizabeth Fraser and Tate McRae, combining current post-Billie Eilish and Lizzy McAlpine airy whisper-vocals with an almost-shoegaze set of inflections that obscure and smear lyrics in favor of creating a cavernous, glassy soundscape. I found that I had trouble understanding a lot of the lyrics for this song, which likely meant the narrative of the track escaped my grasp somewhat, but this wasn't necessarily a point of contention with the track for me. Its approach to creating an atmosphere through sound design nevertheless left an impression with me, and provided an intriguing first glimpse into Sophie's artistic identity.

"Gone Girl" switches up the vibe again, opening with a woozy, washed-out minor acoustic guitar recording augmented with either static or the sound of distant rain. Soon enough, Sophie's trademark heavy kick pulse and ominous synthesizers enter alongside, providing the track with an instant increase in scale, propelling it to titanic, cinematic heights. Sophie delivers a deadpan first verse, discussing a breakup through a disaffected veil that belies a complicated emotional context underneath the surface. The track's next section sees her drift into a lilting, airy falsetto through a hefty dose of Autotune, giving her a robotic edge that I really enjoyed. The touches of reverby, tremolo-heavy electric guitar were a really nice touch that lent a distinctly James Bond sort of feel to the track's soundscape. The track's last verse, where Sophie's spoken deadpan and Autotuned head voice trade lines in tandem, felt like a solid way to end off the track. I nonetheless felt a little confused by this one, specifically in regards to its structure, or lack thereof; on first listen, I found myself having been fooled multiple times into thinking I was hearing a chorus, only to later realize that none of the sections I identified repeated or formed any sort of tangible hook. I suppose I respect Sophie's commitment to through-composed songwriting, but I think on a track like this, I would have preferred the lyrics to be a little more intelligible in order to understand the emotional arc a bit better. I still very much enjoyed Sophie's experimentation with regards to her vocal chain on this one, and her ability to create a swirling, dark soundscape remained as strong as ever.

Track 4 is called "Drew's Interlude", and opens with a true gut punch of a line ("I can't keep you safe from me"), which is perhaps one of my favorite lines on the album. The soundscape on this track is a little more superficially upbeat than on the tracks that preceded it, with plenty of sparkly synth chords and tinkly bells providing an interesting contrast to the song's firmly minor-key aesthetic. The subtle open hats, steady kick, and subdued clap samples lend the track a really strong groove, perhaps the most danceable on the album so far, drawing some sonic influence from The Weeknd and Dua Lipa's experimentation with the dark '80s/new wave aesthetic. The dynamic motion of the track is also maintained really well, with elements constantly dropping out and reappearing to create clear sections and movement. The bridge also sees one of my favorite vocal moments from Sophie on the album, as her vocal steadily builds towards plaintive, pleading high notes that sound excellent as she asks, "Am I the cause?" over and over. After listening a couple times, "Drew's Interlude" is a personal highlight from the album for me. The track's strong chorus, heartfelt lyricism, and danceable groove all merge together into a juggernaut pop song that made a very strong case for Sophie's unique talents as a songwriter and performer.

"This album is a reflection of my experiences of the past few years of college… Musically, I was inspired by Grimes, Lil Peep, Ethel Cain, and Gorillaz." –Sophie Yera

 

"Till Death Do Us Part" keeps the dance aesthetic going, opening with heavily-sidechained synth chords that articulate sweet seventh chords over a subdued, chill drum groove. Sophie's vocal layering came through especially nicely here, with some tight doubles reinforcing and bulking up the lead vocal without smearing over the lyrics too much; the overall styling reminded me a lot of MGMT and Empire of the Sun, an aesthetic Sophie pulls off remarkably well. The track's chorus is also really strong, with a slight switch in the chord progression providing us with a sense of forward movement to accompany the repetitions of "I think I'm free". The second verse also brings a handful of fun vocal moments, such as the literal pause for breath after the line "I feel like I can finally breathe", which put a smile on my face! "Till Death Do Us Part" was another favorite of mine, representing the album's continued shift towards a heavier dancepop aesthetic. The track's catchy melodies & sublime production together make a rather strong showcase that Sophie can hold her own as a dancepop artist as well as in the dark & atmospheric soundscapes that outlined much of the album's first half.

The album's penultimate track, "BLACKOUT", opens with a minor guitar line that very much reminds me of early 2000s post-grunge bands like Fuel and Puddle of Mudd, pairing a woozy, broken-chords pattern with a soaring, distorted lead. The pairing of the guitar line with the thick sub and flickering trap drums makes for a combo I actually really enjoyed, again calling back to The Weeknd's mid-2010s output. Sophie's octave-doubled vocal, paired with a distorted, pitch-shifted version of itself, creates a suitably demented atmosphere without reducing intelligibility too much. Her lyrics discuss the sensation of being too drunk after a night of clubbing, a subject she manages to portray in a uniquely slinky, menacing manner on account of the track's dark musicality and reverb-heavy percussion. With the track's catchy repeated chorus of "I can't feel anything at all" and strong verses combined with the grungy trap instrumental, this track is a definite vibe switch that nonetheless gels perfectly with Sophie's aesthetic. "BLACKOUT" was another definite standout track for me, and one that I'll definitely continue listening to down the road!

The album closes with its title track, which opens with a dramatic string orchestra and synth pads together in tandem as Sophie whispers distantly from the background. On first listen, I wish I could understand the whispered vocal a little better in order to get at the narrative of the album a little more. The synth pads support while at once ceding the spotlight to Sophie's theatrical vocal performance, as she meditates on every iteration of herself she's been through in order to reach this point. Like the opener, this track embraces a sort of slow burn aesthetic, staying in a stripped-back downtempo soundscape for much of the track's duration before bringing in some drums and upping the pulse in the track's outro section, which sees Sophie distantly belting out some sustained melodic lines in a way that almost reminds me a little of Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky" off of The Dark Side of the Moon. Part of me does wish this outro soared a little bit more—I found myself really wishing for a greater sense of catharsis, whether that means more aggressive drums, a more beefy instrumental, a more freeing vocal performance from Sophie. As much as I do respect the decision to keep it a little more constrained and lowkey, I felt like it didn't fully deliver the sense of closure I wanted to really wrap up this album. All the same, though, maybe leaving it slightly open-ended is intentional, and serves a larger purpose I'm not fully seeing—so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Either way, this title track does an excellent job at stripping back the layers of persona progressively built up over the album in attempt to remind us of Sophie's very human vulnerabilities once more.

Looking back on Final Girl as a whole, I think it makes for a commendable debut project that does a lot to solidify Sophie's artistic identity. The moody, synthy, atmospheric production and detached, slightly deadpan vocal stylings over steady, resolute drum grooves paints a clear picture of the under-the-surface emotional turmoil that drove this album's creation. Indeed, Sophie's skill in using sound design and production to create vivid images is a potent strength of this project. The use of reverb in combination with dark synth patches creates a consistent vibe that matches much of the promotional material for this project—heavy with grays and blacks, the life & color squeezed from the landscape like the sickly pale of the recently departed. Sophie's vocal style descends from the school of Lorde, and more recently, Billie Eilish, embracing a similar teen Goth/alternative pop aesthetic in its detachment from explicit emotion. Additionally, as a writer of melodies, Sophie proves to be capable of penning catchy melodic shapes that do a consistently excellent job at hooking the listener's ear. In this way, Final Girl does a lot to highlight and showcase many of the artistic strengths that make Sophie Yera unique.

 

"The album explores themes of adolescence, love, friendship, and betrayal through the lens of the final girl archetype. I was really inspired by this trope found in horror films because I'm a cinephile." –Sophie Yera

I do have a couple points of contention with the project, though, some more nitpicky than others! I think that the project could have started and ended more strongly—the use of two slow burn-style tracks for both the opener and the closer was something that I felt robbed the album of some of the energy of its opening entrance and the closure & catharsis of its stage exit. I found that the vocal mixes on many of the tracks, especially the more atmospheric tracks ("Crystal Lake", "Gone Girl", the title track, and the opening half of "Crazy" most of all) had a tendency to lean towards being telephonic, sweeping out a ton of low-mid frequency information and accenting sibilant frequencies in a way that ended up making them slightly piercing. Under normal circumstances, this might not have impacted my enjoyment of the project too much, but the aforementioned vocal mixing decisions in synergy with the liberal use of reverb had the combined effect of smearing out Sophie's lyrics, rendering them quite difficult to understand on a lot of tracks. Try as I might across multiple listens, I was unable to discern what was being said at many moments throughout the project. As a result, I'm afraid that the higher themes and overarching narrative of this project mostly eluded me and remained beyond my understanding—which is a shame, since the stated premise of Final Girl being based upon the eponymous horror movie archetype is an intriguing one, and I wish I was able to delve further into Sophie's exploration of that idea. Of course, there are exceptions to this issue; "Till Death Do Us Part" and "BLACKOUT" especially were generally easy to follow, but this felt like too little material for me to draw sweeping conclusions about the themes of the project as a whole. (It's also likely no small coincidence that the three tracks I found most intelligible are likely my favorites from the album overall.) It pains me to say, but I feel as though I am still uncertain about what exactly Sophie's story is. While Sophie's showcase of her artistic aesthetic and sonic image is a very strong one, the resultant lack of insight into her songwriting and lyrics leaves something of a blank spot in the album's lasting impression—which is a part of this debut project I cannot ignore.

Still, though, there are a great many things this project does well. Maybe this is just me waxing nostalgic for a moment, but I actually found that it reminded me a lot of my own debut project in a lot of ways: rough around the edges in some areas, sure, but no less earnest & heartfelt in its illumination of what the path ahead might look for Sophie. The album's forays into uptempo dance on "Drew's Interlude" and "Till Death Do Us Part" were undoubtedly my favorite moments on the project, followed closely by the exploration of grungy pop-trap on "BLACKOUT"; all three tracks show very exciting glimpses into very catchy alt-pop territory that feels very her, and teases an artistic space that Sophie can well and truly make her own. I remain ever more excited to see what she brings us from here, and will wait eagerly to see which direction she chooses as she continues to forge her own path.

Personal enjoyment score: 7 out of 10

Standout tracks: "Crystal Lake", "Drew's Interlude", "Till Death Do Us Part", "BLACKOUT"