Ever since I heard ‘Cantina’ a little more than a year ago, I’ve been hooked on Anoush’s sensual latin leanings, her charming melodies, and simple, compelling songwriting. TWO is Anoush’s latest full-length release, and it naturally got me exhilarated to find out if ‘Cantina’ was just a one-time thing, or have I found one of today’s most unique and exciting indie pop artists.
Based in Boise, Idaho, Anoush is an indie singer and songwriter, an artist who pushes the boundaries of indie pop, challenging the status quo of radio-friendliness and what makes pop approachable with mystical and dramatic soundscapes, mariachi cues blended with jazz club allure and frontwoman panache, all wrapped in truly effective pieces of songwriting. TWO is full of short, but brilliant, musical ideas that bedazzle with lyrical and musical nuance and maturity.
Loaded with existential and spiritual themes, TWO is a heavily impactful album with contemplative musical directions that do a great job supporting the lyrical weight. With sensually slow and delightful beats, the gentle hands of strings caressing most songs, and nimble acoustic guitar lines creating the softest accompaniment for Anoush’s sublime restraint, most songs on the album follow this formula, toying around with the variables to end uniformly somewhere truly majestic, mysterious, dark, and enticing.
The first half of TWO features ‘Divide & Conquer’, ‘Golden Hills’, and ‘Take a Trip’, three showstoppers that showcase Anoush’s sonic style and her songwriting talent. The latin-intensive first half starts with ‘Divide & Conquer’. A deep groove and flamboyant 2-chord loop nestle this song deep in latin territory, amped up with Anoush’s emotive and masterful delivery and a piano-driven arrangement, ‘Divide & Conquer’ is a fiery starter to TWO. pay close attention to the terrific key change and the song’s outro.
‘Golden Hills’ introduces the soulful acoustic guitar lines, planting the sound even deeper into latin territory. With a tearjerker chord progression, a slow-to-moderate tempo, and one of the album’s gentlest vocal deliveries, ‘Golden Hills’ is one of the album’s most delicate and delightful offerings, with its deeply impactful bursts of bass. But among the album’s many stunners, ‘Take a Trip’ takes the cake for me. With a similar formula as ‘Golden Hills’, ‘Take a Trip’ makes without the melancholy, substituting it with a playful, back and forth progression, a superbly dynamic vocal delivery, and a soft arrangement that got me thoroughly entranced, not wanting it to ever end.
The album’s second half experiments more with different directions. Starting with the subdued glee of the piano-driven ballad ‘Your Letter’, it is the first song on the album to veer off the decidedly latin path the previous songs have gone through. ‘Your Letter’ is delightful and warm, showcasing Anoush’s performer skills as she sings alongside the piano, nearly unaccompanied but for a few wailing harmonies in the background. A beautiful transition to the album’s bluesier second half. ‘June Gloom’ then goes full blues, with tight lead guitar lines, a swinging waltz, and Anoush’s vocals perfectly falling in line for the blues, ‘June Gloom’ is a gentle and gorgeous blues cut.
The album ends with a few mild experiments including the ominous piano-driven ‘Dark Wood’, melancholic and dark, more characterful blues, with an upbeat twist and the reintroduction of latin chord movements with the penultimate ‘Obsessed’, and the grandiose, cinematic closer ‘Glistening’. A bold transition has occurred between the album’s direct, latin pop beginnings, and its meandering, cinematic, and eccentric last third, and it is a transition that displays Anoush as quite the bold musician, unwilling to be bound to the one sound for the whole length of an album.
All in all, TWO is a beautiful and gripping listen from start to finish. I’m truly happy to report that -at least for me- Anoush is an artist readily capable of creating stunning songs, and examples like ‘Golden Hills’, ‘Take a Trip’, ‘Your Letter’, ‘Dark Wood’, and ‘Glistening’ are testimonials for her talents.