Fenne Lily came up through the folk scenes of South England quickly, opening shows for the likes of
KT Tunstall and
C Duncan when she was still in her mid-teens. Her soft-spoken, melancholic songs soon won over a broader audience; her debut single, "Top to Toe," was met with millions of streams upon its release in 2016, a feat duplicated on several subsequent releases. Making her Dead Oceans label debut, her second album,
Breach, is an inward-looking set of songs written during a deliberate period of isolation. Later recorded in Chicago with producer
Brian Deck and
Steve Albini, its slightly more expansive sound is evident on tracks like the lush "I, Nietzsche" and spiky "Alapathy." While her first album had its share of electric guitars, "Alapathy" is an outright indie rocker, replete with distortion and driving drums as well as atmospheric keys and effects.
Lily's voice is still restrained on the track, however, delivering lines like "Doing alright never felt so wrong" with a breathy, conversational melody. Elsewhere, the intimate "Elliott" features uniquely delicate, more-intricate components, including clattering objects and a small bell in addition to acoustic guitar, strings, and a minimal rhythm section.
Lily's voice on that song is just above a whisper. Even the sardonic "I Used to Hate My Body but Now I Just Hate You" offers lyrics such as "I heard you live at home now with your parents/It doesn't satisfy me like it should" in a soothing -- and weary -- tone. After working through songs about both loneliness and embracing solitude,
Breach closes with the hushed "Laundry and Jet Leg," which confesses, "I gave up smoking when I was coughing up blood/And when I felt better again, I took it straight back up," reflecting an uncertainty about moving forward with relationship scars in tow. The track ends the melancholy set on an appropriately unsettled note, given that it opens with "To Be a Woman, Pt. 1" -- and there's no Part Two.