Box for Buddy, Box for Star

Album review

Nate Amos—one half of both Water from Your Eyes and My Idea—has self-released hundreds of songs over the last decade as This Is Lorelei, his solo project. Box for Buddy, Box for Star, however, is his first full-length album. And it was well worth the wait. Amos has said he finally committed to harnessing his scattered thoughts into a comprehensive album after "I laid on the ground at Stonehenge for 40 minutes and decided to stop smoking weed … For better or worse, what I made ended up being a delayed recovery album, largely dealing with more significant addictions that I kicked a year earlier." The style is a little bit all over the place, in a good way—encompassing various personalities, much in the way people change throughout life. "Angel's Eye" is a country campfire waltz, with a breathy duet partner Amos has yet to name. "The idea is there's this biblical angel, big fucking terrifying thing, that abducts a cowboy and takes him to space," he told Rolling Stone. "It's like a Romeo and Juliet thing—a love duet sung between the cowboy and the alien who can't be together." "Two Legs" is a dead ringer for Elliott Smith, channeling that singer-songwriter's throughline to Harry Nilsson's creamy tenderness. With its jumpy beats, "Perfect Hand" fits the electro-emo category. "I'm All Fucked Up" is wonderful, classically poppy indie rock, with Amos wearing his Death Cab influences on his sleeve. He's said it about "me trying to diagnose/comfort/scold my younger self," and the hindsight is irresistibly voyeuristic. "You little sick thing, you had your fun," Amos sings. "You cut the line, baby there's no more tears." Hopeful "Where's Your Love Now," using plinking toy piano sounds and swelling strings, is a warm embrace that recalls Magnetic Fields. Starting with a coughing fit, the title track settles into a pleasantly shambling Americana melody before switching to a straightforwardly pretty piano recital. "A Song That Sings About You"—dreamy vocal melody, jangling chords with a sharp power-pop riff—is like a convincing argument for adding This Is Lorelei to the storied Elephant 6 Collective. Amos uses a vocoder glitch to "play the heel," as he's said, on plush "Dancing in the Club": "I feel your heart in spades/ While you were dancing in the club/ I gave my diamonds all away." ("It was supposed to be a character study and I guess it is but it turns out the character was just me," he has admitted.) And "An Extra Beat for You and Me" is a knockout, expertly capturing the way the British Invasion channeled the Everly Brothers. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz