MARINA

Love + Fear

Marina's Electra heart still beats, it's just pumping smoother and with a confidence born from a renewed and mature perspective.

On LOVE + FEAR, Marina shoots for stripped-bare big pop, and for the most part, she achieves it, but various clichéd lyrics occasionally stop her sincerity in its tracks.

When Marina is playing to her strengths, there’s no stopping her.  But as ‘Love + Fear’ is split between two primary emotions, at times it does appear disjointed and confused.

Throughout both parts (but more so in Fear), there’s a detachment to Marina’s vocal that implies an alien being trying to figure humanity out.

An album of two halves, this is a singular record from a bold talent. It doesn't always land perfectly, but Marina's ingenuity can't be denied.

For such a bulky release ..., much of Love + Fear feels oddly insubstantial.

While Love + Fear can sit comfortably on the same shelf as the myriad of self-care oriented pop coming out in 2019, it’s not one that will be reached for first.

This is very much an album of two halves; Love’s comparatively superficial pomp doesn’t always hit the mark, but the intriguing Fear suggests that whatever comes next for Marina may involve further soul-searching intensity.

Her first priority in composing Love + Fear seems to have been returning to a place where music could be enjoyable, and generative, and healing; in a word, safe.

The lightweight playlist-pleasing pop of these songs blends into the background and sounds boring, something she always avoided.

Thankfully, Diamandis still boasts one defining quality – that rich, round voice capable of conveying lust, loss and casual threats ... It is what imbues Love + Hate with conviction when the melodies and lyrics fail.