Changing Light’s reassuring compass is found in Mirah’s shimmering vocals and incisive descriptions. There is yearning (“Gold Rush” and “Fleetfoot Ghost”) and hot anger (“Goat Shepherd”), but no shortage of lyrical and musical playfulness. Whether it be the T. Rex-inspired rough edges of “Radiomind,” the rollicking lo-fi bang-and-pop of “Goat Shepherd,” or the lush pop balladry of “Turned the Heat Off,” the album corrals string sections and vintage synths with horns, a multitude of guitar tones and overdriven drums. With calm and clamor, Mirah brings us all closer together through her universal honesty and occasional use of the vocoder.
Thanks to an attempt to get a story going about the online pre-order effort for Changing Light, I’ve been lucky enough to hear the album in its entirety months ahead of release. I’ve been a Mirah fan for awhile, but this might be my favorite album of hers yet; her work as a lyricist remains startling to me, and there’re at least two songs on here that just took my breath away and made me re-listen again and again. In a perfect world, this’d be something that everyone listened to and adored, something that made Mirah embarrassingly well-loved.