A short but solid art pop album with chamber, folk and synthpop elements that starts off very approachable and poppy and eventually ends with more intimate, adventurous material. The album begins with Queendom and Forgotten love, the two most straightforward tracks on the record. These songs are good but feel a bit forced and made to attempt to garner appeal from larger audiences. After these two tracks, the album truly feels like it settles in and Aurora is at her best with It Happened Quiet and Churchyard, slower and more emotional songs. Infections of a Different Kind (Step 1) is one of those records where skimming each song it feels like every song has its great moments but on the whole the album lacks. Aurora has a very angelic voice and there isn't a ton of variation with her vocal approach, it can be hard to relate to and it just doesn't always pull you in like the best pop singers. The songwriting for the poppier tracks is also incredibly predictable and Aurora falls back on quiet, ethereal builds erupting into tribal, dense beats with that "epic" feel a bit too much.
2 Bumps | Bump |
