The Daily Spin, August 11
The Lumineers | Cleopatra
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: Cleopatra (2016)
Artist: The Lumineers
Link:
The Lumineers rose to prominence in a very specific era circa 2012, around the time that American Idol winner Phillip Phillips dropped ‘Home’, a song that would later be picked up by NBC for Olympic gymnastics coverage (truly, I think the only time I listened to that specific song). It was a very specific gap in coverage that Americana and indie folk were invited to fill in, and with it, the Lumineers came through to prominence with their self-titled debut full-length.
While the group gets panned (somewhat deservedly so) for songs like ‘Ho Hey’, which are… hokey, to say the least, Cleopatra, their second full-length album, moves away from that corniness into a much more earnest composition throughout. Songs like ‘Ophelia’, though it marches, are less “terrible political campaign motivator” and more “dueling piano bar”-type tunes, a massive step forward not only for my ears, but for the ears of the nation.
Beyond that, the true strength of Cleopatra is in the pure emotion that bleeds through each track - though ‘In The Light’, ‘Long Way From Home’, and ‘White Lie’ are all super simple on the surface, it’s also deeply evident the sentiment that pours through the vocals, particularly - and the instrumentation glows in backing these, never overstepping, allowing the lyrics to carry every bit of the weight to maximize the hit.
For a band that very well could have rested on their laurels after such a strong debut, I’m both grateful and impressed that they decided to carry on forward with their work - I don’t particularly care to think of the universe in which we’ve all been deprived of this record.
Rating: 9.1/10
Best Tracks: White Lie, Long Way From Home, Patience
Worst Tracks: Gun Song