Break-up albums are a dime a dozen, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more lighthearted breakup album than La Sera’s Sees The Light. Opening song Love That’s Gone has all intentions of being an introverted, self-pitying song going by its title and musical style, but when Katy Goodman kicks things off with the lyric ‘I love my life without you’, it suggests something quite different. After this gentle opener, Goodman plugs in the electric guitar for a trio of striking pop numbers: the chugging album highlight Please Be My Third Eye, the aloof I Can’t Keep You In My Mind and the dance-in-your-bedroom anthem of Break My Heart. The resigned It’s Over Now brings the tempo back down and marks the start of the album’s more varied second half, wherein Goodman flirts with sunny indie pop, retro calypso, cinematic road-trip rockers and reverb-washed epics. And then we’re back to where we started, with the soothing kiss-off Don’t Stay. Again, the message here is clear: it didn’t work, it’s over, let’s move on.
This is the second solo album from Goodman and the Vivian Girls bassist opts for a more polished sound than what is expected from her full-time band. There’s a self-affirming steeliness to the subject matter that comes across in the crystal-clear production and effortless juggling of genres – proof that breaking up is hard to do, but fun to make music about.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best track: Please Be My Third Eye
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Crazy For You BEST COAST, Go With Me SEAPONY
In A Word: Reformed
