Lights – The Listening

On her debut EP, Lights came out and surprised everyone. First was the fact that it was on Underground Operations, a respected punk label who had never released anything like it before. Then was the fact that Lights was found alongside Protest The Hero, on Warped Tour and signed to Doghouse in the States. Then came a Juno award for Best New Artist and soon her catchy pop songs blew up – at least in Canada – to the point where that if you didn’t know who Lights was, you still knew the single Drive My Soul. It was infectious, it was catchy and it slipped into your memory banks before you knew what hit you.

The EP was full of simple, catchy, infectious synth-pop songs. Lights, who’s real name is Valerie Poxleitner, had a strong and cutesy voice that was capable to soar when she needed it to. The keytar and comic-book looked worked for her. It was a safe, electro-pop album that had a certain charm to it. On her debut full length, The Listening, Lights builds on that charm and delivers an album that is the exact equal to the EP; but at thirteen songs, the sugary sweetness of Lights starts to become a bit too much.

The Listening features the same light-hearted melodies, synth lines and drum loops that was present on her EP. Lights vocals still carry the same high-pitch, catchy delivery and nowhere on the album is a song that stands out as truly bad; but its rare that you get one that is truly great either. There is very little variation between tracks which makes the album feel a bit repetitive. A pop album needs to have some different hooks and changes in tempo to keep the listener’s attention, and The Listening just doesn’t have that which makes it difficult to listen to front to back.

Sadly, the best songs on the album are the four that were already released on her EP: Drive My Soul, Ice, The Last Thing On Your Mind and February Air. It was rather unnecessary to release them again since they were released just last year; and the inclusion of two versions of Pretend just adds another layer to the repetitive nature of the album. If she had taken some more time to fill the album out with all new songs then maybe the album would have a stronger lasting impression but as it is I may as well just pull out the EP and play that.

There are a few new songs, Saviour and The Listening being the most prominent ones, that do stick out but as a whole, The Listening seems unnecessary. The EP offers the best tracks already and isn’t nearly as long; after all, you can only take the sugary sweetness of Lights for so long.