Lights gives a Pep talk to us (and herself) on new record

 

A bit of background on me, as a child I really hated Lights. Just her music mainly, as I grew up I found her to be an interesting figure. She had a lot of ties to heavier music despite being a Canadian pop star and having a lot of success in that area. Those ties though sort of made her ingrained in two cultures and as a kid who mostly liked metalcore you can see where we were at odds. When I started getting into music more broadly however I had a book of 250 records hand selected by RockSound and Light’s Little Machines was covered so I listened to it and, now that I was older, found I didn’t hate it but didn’t get the appeal.

All this background to tell you a personal story; Flashback to Warped Tour 2009, (I believe, anyway) I’m fifteen, an angry and depressed high schooler, at my first Warped Tour and I walk past Light’s booth where she’s standing waiting for her own meet and greet to start so we cross paths. Now, I’m extremely embarrassed to tell you this, but I told her that her music sucked. To her face. None of the factors of my own misery justified this of course, but like I said, I wasn’t a happy kid and I feel guilty about it now. But I can say, as an adult in 2022, that I’m here to eat my own words. Because Pep by Lights is an incredible record that I am here only to sing the praises of.

My first taste of this project, “Prodigal Daughter,” was also one of my top singles of 2021 and still really is great with its inclusion on the full length. The whole track has a beautiful production between its bassline and the big synth keys over that “baby I’m back” hook. A hook, by the way, that really gets to you in an effective way. Like most of the record attached the song is fun, it’s well crafted, but what makes a lot of this work out as well as it does is what Lights is saying here.

“Love, magic, feminism, finally found religion laying naked on the poolside.”

She’s talking about reclaiming herself, her confidence, her sense of self as a woman and inspires us to find our core and what makes us whole as well.

“Get back to your soul at the bottom of the sea and come back up, unlock the cuffs, run baby, run you’re free.” It’s inspirational to hear an artist talk about being free in a sense of freeing yourself from your shame and what others perceive you as in a way that’s fun and really makes you feel that freedom.

“Beside Myself” opens the record and is a song that’s more in line with what I understood this artist to be, which is bedroom synthpop with a MySpace flair. I don’t mean that in a way where I’m talking down on the song or the record but it’s hard to not make a comment like that on a record that opens with the word “ghosts.” Even when the song does pick up it sounds like a movie trailer or extended album intro with it’s howling vocals and instrumental that sounds like one big bridge. Even lines like;

“We hold onto the good times and the right now and the long nights and the hometown and the bright lights as they guide us to the next life.”

Sound like they would have fit right at home on a record like Little Machines.

“In My Head” features Josh Dun on percussion and is very much in the headspace of Twenty One Pilots sonically. This is a very pop rock track and Lights manages to make the key hook a drum reference, which comes off a little silly but also does feel like a nice call out to the collaboration. Despite the fact that I’ve never been impressed with TOP at all frankly I find myself enjoying this colliding of worlds as it sounds like it would fit into their own discography but on Lights’ side feels like a re introduction to the record and its true topics, in fact the start of the song feels like its hot off an album intro and not a full song. A lot of what Lights is saying here feels like the thesis statement of the whole project;

“Maybe I’m a loser maybe love is dead, but I’ma keep on dancing to the song in my head”

A lot of what Pep is, is Lights taking ownership of herself and prioritizing her own well being over everyone else's and I think that’s a lot of what this song is trying to communicate.

Things start to feel a lot grander on “Salt and Vinegar” with its slow burn, bass driven post-chorus that I can more or less hear live outdoors in my own head. There are points of this bassline where you audibly make out every string being plucked; it's so well produced. The chorus itself is rather quiet and in its second iteration uses a vocal effect to invoke the same emotion in her voice as the big bass later on. The optimism she presents here is top notch the opening line;

“Bad decisions give me good things to think about”

Is quite a power-move as a way to start a track up. Here Lights is using lyrics to both remind herself and teach her audience that we can in fact pick ourselves up and we do not need to wait for someone else to do it for us;

“Nothing like a pep talk to yourself, it works every time.”

That’s only the first verse, however, later on Lights is ruminating on someone in her own support system that isn’t what they claim to be but in not being the best support they end up being useful to her own growth in a different way. Using this metaphor of salt and vinegar, someone can push you by not being everything they’re supposed to be.

“Money in the Bag” is another moment where I can tell exactly where Lights’ roots come from only this time the song itself is what I remember the electronic side of Warped Tour to be. This one is just a simple pop banger with a hook that sounds like it could decorate the full length of a tank top. Not to break the illusion but I did write the notes for this review outside on a beautiful day so this track and its danceable beats probably really invoked a summer fun emotion in me.

We get a lower key moment in “Jaws.” Here Lights is giving another pep talk but in the third person and it’s really just putting a lot of her theories thus far into practice. The basic message of the track is that you can be a force working against those holding you down. I don’t think it adds much sonically but it’s an important track on the record for sure.

The following “Rent” is another lowkey moment only this time it’s an R & B influenced ballad with these grand synths in the echoes of that festival sensibility. Some of the best vocal work on the record as well, Lights sounds like she’s singing in a plane above our own with that “head with no body” passage. Concept proves to be everything once again, the line;

“If you want to live in my head you gotta pay the expenses and honey you can’t afford what the rent is.”

Is the centerpiece and is confidence to the next level. There is of course the stereotypical concept of living in someone’s head rent free but here Lights is saying for you to even appear on her radar you have to be a lot more important than that. That is the very attitude that keeps me coming back to this record again and again.

You can really tell that Lights came up with bands like Bring Me the Horizon and blessthefall on “Easy Money.” I do mean with as in alongside as I feel she has influenced those bands as much as they her. The main instrumental line here sounds like it could have been a riff on BMtH’s last full length; amo. Lyrically Lights takes a step back from being sure of herself to hone in on vulnerability and asks the subject if they would trust her to be there for them, does she invoke that same sense of security that she feels alongside this person? Considering we just spent nine tracks being unmovable it’s refreshing to see her have a need to take care of others as well. She also uses this to bleed into pasts from past songs putting a new spin on the “dangerous mixture” line from “Salt and Vinegar.”

“Both of us are trouble with a capital ‘t,’ but you’re safe with me.”

“Okay Okay” could easily compete with a top forties pop song of today. Between its big intro and chorus, acoustic built pre-chorus and the huge gang vocals it reminds me of any mainstream idol. It even has a big 80s inspired production which is popular in that lane right now. Thematically it feels like an extension of “Easy Money” in that it again iterates this sensation of having her confidence but being willing to trust someone to the extent of following them straight to Hell. Even in that though, she really wants you to remember this is a record about her, not a relationship, not her building someone else up, it’s about her. She even goes out of her way to reiterate the thesis of the whole record.

“I’m the happiest sad girl you’ll ever meet.”

While “Grip” is not my favorite track on the album it is a sampler plate of everything presented on the project, which makes it a compelling closer. Despite being a lowkey cut as well it has possibly the grandest post-chorus. There are no real repeating parts, everything hits you all at once, the drama, the confidence, then the record is over.

What keeps me so gripped by this record is not only Light’s optimism, it’s the attitude she brings where you are not going to bother her. She’s a rock you simply cannot move. All these songs are pop songs yes, but can all stand on their own feet as singles with their huge hooks, albeit not always being vocal. The main criticism I can make of this record is that a lot of these songs do follow a formula and it costs the record some creativity despite the fact that some of them do utilize that formula differently. Lights is also on top of her game vocally here, songs like “Sparky” feature her getting very soulful and into her themes. While the track “Voices Carry” demonstrates her ability to hold her own with little to no production or back up. With all these tools at her disposal, the Lights of 2022 more than likely would have laughed in my face if I told her she was a bad musician at a music festival, and she’d be right! I’ll say again; This record is incredible and I’m happily eating acknowledging I was wrong. Lights is a great songwriter, I really admire her ability to hold onto you and not let go.

Not that I think Lights will read my silly little review, but if you are? I’m sorry I took out my own frustration on you as a kid. In a lot of ways this record is inspiring me to live my best life and be unapologetically my authentic self in the current year, so I thank you so much for that.

Lights Official Website

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