At only 28 minutes long, Lysandre is easily digestible in a single sitting, but that really just embellishes its true purpose – to temporarily whet our appetites till all those other Christopher Owens solo records appear.
'Lysandre' frequently charms. It is a primarily low-key statement, but does enough to suggest that Owens' future post-Girls may be very promising.
That Christopher Owens’ songs are so simultaneously vivid, immersive and indulgent is one thing, that he has crafted the character to execute them so expertly is quite another.
Even with the thematic ties running throughout Lysandre, it isn’t overly ambitious
It's a much more intimate record, not in the sense of soul-bearing – there was plenty of that in Girls – but in that it's a record written not just for Owens, but for the girl of the album's title.
These songs chart the narrative of a vulnerable man in strange and exciting new places, and they do so reasonably well, and with all the sincerity we’ve come to expect from Owens.
Fans of Girls may be surprised by how thoroughly Owen’s surf, punk and shoegaze influences have been whitewashed from the mix.
‘Lysandre’ is an accomplished and confident first outing for a songwriter who already feels destined to nestle alongside Daniel Johnston and Elliott Smith as a master of the cult American songbook.
The deftness and maturity with which Owens addresses the initial infatuation and eventual dissolution of the brief relationship with Lysandre is fascinating for a songwriter so often tied up in generalities.
If the story of Lysandre is so significant to Owens that it demanded its own song cycle, his musical treatments don't always do the material justice.
Too often, it just doesn’t seem like he was as ambitious with the craft of this one as he was with past efforts, however natural they may have sounded.
Lysandre sounds a lot like a Girls record, only with a reappearing theme riff snuck in at the end of each song and the noticeable lack of at least one badass garage stomper.
A surprisingly brief, half-an-hour effort, with the lavish, multi-part epics that showcased Girls at their most adventurous and proficient conspicuously absent.
Though Owens takes precise measures to avoid it, the downfall of Lysandre ultimately comes down to this same-y-ness, as the majority of the album's tracks do very little to truly grab the listeners attention.
Lysandre is full of problems/problematic things, and most of it rests on one of the album’s biggest problems: the insistent, ever-present “me.”
Not as impressive of a solo debut as I was hoping for from him, but I don't think it's as bad as most critics are saying it is.
As a Girls fan in high school, I bought the cd the day it dropped at the campus record exchange when I was in college, and needless to say was vastly disappointed. I have a soft spot for it because I listened so many times tying to like it more; but the debut is not his best solo album, now in hindsight.