Review Summary: If it’s going to be like this, let the world end.
We have an early contender for the fattest beat of the year. “Upwards”, track 9 on Ela Minus’ second album
Dia, wastes no time introducing its throbbing, sweaty bassline, and its like being smacked in the skull with a frying pan. The best moments on
Dia are those that command you to the dance floor: the arpegiatting synth grooves of “Broken” and the explosive final minute of “I Want To Be Better”.
It’s this faithfulness to the club that distinguishes Ela from her alt-pop peers, despite her icy vocals and left-field production bringing to mind Fever Ray and ionnalee on the slower-tempo (and less successful) album cuts.
But don’t let the production fool you into thinking this is a party album, listen a bit more closely and you’ll see that Ela is using dance as a catharsis for her inner turmoil. On the tormented “Idols” she sings, “Laughing laughing laughing, even in my dreams / can’t you hear me crying, when you go to sleep?” While the thematic juxtaposition is appreciated, at times the lyrics can feel a little bit generic and cliché, such as on “Broken” when she sings “went to hell and back, laughed all the way, now I’m broken” and goes on to mention feeling broken a further 50 times.
However, she creatively solves this problem for herself by singing in her native Spanish on “QQQQ”, the album’s climactic point. The apocalyptic, crescendoing production and morose vocal delivery perfectly highlights the lyrics “si va a ser asi, que se acabe el mundo” / “if it’s going to be like this, let the world end.”
Cause in the club, we are all fam(iliarly experiencing existential dread).
