Singer/songwriter
Lael Neale's 2021 album
Acquainted with Night departed from the somewhat forgettable studio sound of her earlier work in favor of home recording, imperfect performances, and spare arrangements consisting mostly of voice and Omnichord, a toy-like synth instrument with a built-in rhythm box. While the lo-fi production was markedly rougher, something about the minimal composition and constant bed of tape hiss only pushed the character of
Neale's songs to the forefront.
Star Eaters Delight continues the raw production of
Acquainted with Night and expands on its dream-like sound by further fleshing out the arrangements and playing with the delivery. Each of the eight songs on
Star Eaters Delight takes a slightly different approach, beginning with the anxious drum machine and "bap badda dum" chanting of "I Am the River."
Neale's Omnichord switches between two droning chords as frequent collaborator/producer
Guy Blakeslee adds twitchy guitar leads, amounting to a jumpy opening track lost somewhere between
Suicide's most blissed-out moments and the most demented girl group that never was. "Must Be Tears" is more subdued, with synthetic Mellotron strings and gentle melodies evoking the same soft melancholy
Nico captured on
Chelsea Girl. "No Holds Barred" is another minimal standout. Though the song is just guitar and reverb-heavy vocals, its melodies and composition are so precise that it's immediately captivating, feeling like a lost demo from
Linda Ronstadt's
Stone Ponies era,
Jackie DeShannon, or any number of stars from the phase of AM pop that bridged the late '60s and early '70s. Elsewhere, the lengthy centerpiece "In Verona" builds slowly from piano passages to textural washes of guitar and field recordings. The eight-minute song sounds like an audience tape of
Lana Del Rey jamming with
Spacemen 3, a combination that looks questionable on paper but manifests in a best-of-both-worlds way here.
Star Eaters Delight is less of a uniform statement than
Acquainted with Night was, but this collection of versatile songs acts as a tour of different neighborhoods in the beautifully smeary nocturnal dream world
Neale began building on her last album. ~ Fred Thomas
