Alternative pop is the chance for an artist to explore their voice and image. Fe Salomon leaps at that opportunity with Living Rooms. Up, old and cold, the horrors of the life ahead for everyone is charted on the very stripped-back opening of Polka Dot. It takes trust in the range of an artist to open with what is a very unique voice backed by nothing but the intention of the lyrics. Living Rooms is full of experimentation. Overflowing with hooks and lines that linger on as more than just a throwaway piece of the pop genre. These opening strengths are relied on throughout a truly unique bit of alternative pop.
Whether it works for the rest of the album is up to taste and taste alone. Highly-strung electronic beats open Colours Sounds but are soon removed to make way for Salomon’s strong voice. Those electronic inclusions are intermittent, heard under the bed of strings and momentous qualities that share the same message and feel of Polka Dots. Many of the tracks do share that need for a return home, or a reach back to simpler times. Nothing of the sort can come about, the futility is at the core of a pleasant-yet-heartbreaking piece. Fe Salomon presents that lyrical quality best of all on the double bill of Wired on Caffeine and All Or Nothing, orchestral-like features that give way to the talent at the heart of Living Rooms.
Creatures of Habit steers the message stretching over the course of the album very well. Salomon has a placement of form like no other. Quality alternative pop riffs that rely on an elevated presence. A rise and rise is felt throughout. The lighter and twee charms of mockery on Quintessential England, are, well, quintessential for the style found on such a track. Those forgettable but necessary criticisms bridge into an electronic soundscape with Super Human and feel nicely contrast to the start of the rebellious, harsher tracks found earlier on the album. Salomon enjoys these consistent tones of self-respect and attempts at redefining the individual. Due Respect feels like a resounding track that forms itself on that basis alone, a powerful track of value and worth. It is quite the change of pace when some popular pop tracks are vain and inherently dedicated to capitalism, imagery and power.
Salomon manages to deflect the horrid pop throes of Meghan Trainor or the vacuous emptiness of Ava Max by marking her alternative pop scores as meaningful arrangements. They are delicate structures, brilliantly worked lyrical endeavours that have such interesting instrumentals underscoring them. Bright As Day does not shy away from the powerful tones that can come from discussing the deals and tribulations of modern pop, but it does so with a sincerity lacking in mainstream releases of the last few years. Living Rooms is just that. It is living. It feels real and vibrant, articulate and strong in its intention. Taxicabs, the final track of Living Rooms, gets to that feeling better than any other track – the arching vocal defiance present there is a quality, powerful, alternative pop piece of defiance.
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