Los Angeles singer/songwriter
Nedelle Torrisi has a knack for capturing the bittersweet ins and outs of romance and longing. The richly imagined lovelorn synth pop she introduced on her previous outing,
Advice from Paradise, lived warmly in the wee small hours when melancholia almost feels like a fond friend. Her 2018 follow-up and debut for the Frenchkiss label,
Only for You, plays like a logical and more streamlined sequel, melding themes of romantic entanglement, heartache, and desire with poetic personal reflections. Where
Advice from Paradise enjoyed some of the spontaneity of having been recorded during a brief period,
Only for You feels ultimately more honed, owing nods to the kind of luxuriant dream pop favored by
David Lynch as well as slick '90s R&B. Co-produced by fellow L.A. indie pop scene denizen
Billy Uomo (
Babes), the album benefits from some elegant arrangements that frame
Torrisi's beguiling vocals and tender confessions. Standouts like "Love to the Limit" and "Rich Kids World" offer an expert pairing of pink-clouded weightlessness and hooky choruses, proving once again that
Torrisi knows her way around the craft of pop songwriting. Elsewhere, the music takes its time to coalesce, like the slinky "Bad Dream," whose third-quarter vocal payoff and deft string sections please like warm rain. The dynamic, slow-building piano ballad "Vision of Love" is another standout, setting up the graceful strings-and-vocal finale, "Show Me Your Face." Sensual, wistful, and alluringly sweet,
Only for You is romantic pop done right, hitting all the notes on the emotional scale of amorous connection.