Looking vaguely similar to British music innovator Imogen Heap in her image galleries, Chicago-born Connecticut living Lia Kessel’s music is hard to categorize. It’s a form of art pop with an emphasis on keyboards and occasional worldly instruments from Indian to Oriential. This style of sound which made last year’s spellbinder Glasser’s “Interiors” so infectious and charming. 

 

Lia Ices came to fame after her songs starting featuring on many U.S TV show soundtracks including HBO’s “Girls. So now we have reached Ices’ third album now and it is becoming unrecognizable from her earlier work, which in my opinion was more straightforward and piano focused with singer-songwriter honesty and compared to the new album is a little dull. She studied piano as a child and therefore a valid reason for it’s early dominance. Yes there was occasional interesting orchestral beauty within the folk but this new third album is a different ball game altogether.

 

“Ices” jumps into it’s new upbeat sound straight away with the Notting Hill Carnival-esque opener “Tell Me”, “Thousand Eyes” benefits from new production styles that sound similar to French band Air. The track also contains an Indian santoor, which is a prime piece of instrumentation on many other tracks including the lead single, “Higher” (my least favourite track) but I admire the song for it’s Grimes-driven electro pop and the MO style editing of the music video.

 

The album’s most creative tracks are “Love Ices Over” (An example of how she distorts the direction of voice in the saner playfulness as the aforementioned Imogen Heap, “Electric Arc” (there is Old tribal calling, need I say more), “How We Are” (Confident, directional and self-assured like a Chairlift track) and “Creature”.

 

I like how the dream pop style, harmonics, and low-fi voice production sound on certain tracks sound similar to Cults’ self-titled album (especially on Ices’ stand out track “Magick”) which excelled in it’s own unique genre. Constantly surprising, very enjoyable, full of delights. It belongs in it’s own category fresh as Ice. MTH