Lights - Siberia Acoustic (2013)
I have two prominent memories concerning this album: One was back in 2013, and I listened to this entire album in a toilet stall in a haunted bathroom at a Job Corps facility on my first night there while everyone was asleep, because I was scared shitless and needed someone to calm me down, and wouldn't you know it: That was Lights. The second night, we made a homemade flamethrower and nearly caught a shower curtain on fire, so that was a different change of pace. Second time was sometime in 2015, with my cancer-ridden dachshund in my lap, a lava lamp on, in a dark room, as it rained outside, listening to this album. It was such a perfect moment, very calming for the both of us: A lonely man and his scared dog braving the terrors of the night. This moment was the calm before the storm (while a storm was going on) because just a short time after, my nerves in my body would become ultra sensitive, and I couldn't lay in bed at night without feeling like bugs were crawling underneath my skin, biting me constantly. This lasted for about six months or so, and occasionally comes back, but I lost a -lot- of sleep during that time, and it drove me fucking crazy. What was worse was that my family couldn't help me, and in the case of my alcoholic stepdad, would brush it aside, like "just take a sleeping pill, it'll knock you out" when that wasn't even slightly the Goddamn fucking problem. At one point, it got so bad that I was seriously contemplating the idea of ending my life, partly out of wanting to get out of this pure fucking misery I had found my life in, and maybe, as selfish as it sounds, to prove a point. I guess I wanted to show my family I wasn't fucking around and they should've listened to me. That's a really dark, demented thought, but when you go so long without sleeping, where you're actively begging to God for Him to kill you in your sleep, you fathom many a dastardly plan.
Ah, where was I? This Lights album, yeah? Featuring ten tracks from the original album (sucks that not every track is on here.. Imagine an acoustic "Day One") completely reworked to turn them from "songs your mom would like" to "songs your grandma would like" and I love it. It's not just Lights and an acoustic guitar, sitting along in some recording booth, mind you: A piano and cello occasionally come over to play, and God, doesn't the intro to "Flux and Flow" sound magnificent when converted from dubstep wubs to cello? Cellostep? Dubcello? Ah. Anyhow, those additional instruments really help get across the feeling that the recordings had more work put into them than just recording a session, especially when everything is drenched in a nice, healthy helping of reverb to make it sound like the perfect album to listen to in your headphones when you've settled your horse for the night, and are laying in a tent, trying to hide from authorities because you stole that motherfucking horse.
Interestingly enough, sometimes Lights brings in an additional vocalist to help her turn some of her tunes into duets, with Adam Young of Owl City being brought in "Cactus in the Valley", Max Kerman of Arkells in "Siberia" and Cœur de Pirate in "Peace Sign", but truth be told, only the latter of which is really that enjoyable: Cœur de Pirate NAILS a verse in that song in French and it sounds just absolutely lovely. Adam Young is alright in his appearance, I felt like Max Kerman is a great vocalist but the power of his voice didn't mesh well with Lights' gentleness, but Cœur de Pirate? Wow. Killer. Love that shit. If we could only get a collaboration EP/album between Lights and Cœur de Pirate, I might just smile for the first time in years. Hell yeah!
Anyhow, your enjoyment of this album comes down to your enjoyment of this album. Shocking, I know, but check it out even if you didn't dig the original album, you fucks. Also.. That dachshund is, as of writing, still alive, don't worry. No tears tonight. No no.
8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
