Tomorrows II is the second album in a three-volume body of work from Son Lux. Releasing December 4 on City Slang, Tomorrows II ‘reveals the strange in the familiar and the familiar in the strange’. Slanted chord progressions and aching vocals only deepen the feeling. Something is distorted, something is off, and the music is a way for Son Lux to make sense of the world’s often asymmetrical shapes and violent convulsions. A friction runs throughout the album, from acidic-tinged lyrics to a pebble-like percussion, which stutters throughout ‘Molecules’, cycling around within the track before coming to an intoxicating and exotic endpoint.
Tomorrows II provides a ‘parallel for the sustained cacophony of the present moment’. The lyrics wrap around the music, and it becomes a dialogue, a conversation, constantly evolving and lengthening and adapting its clothing to better fit the other elements; both are dancing.
The restless ‘Leaves’ provides a scattering of rhythm, too, blowing into the rest of the track and helping it along with the strong gusts of momentum. An unusual progression makes the track what it is, giving it a new angle, and coupled together with a set of bold, fresh lyrics – lyrics that are well thought-out and clever in their wordplay – the music is elevated. Issues of identity, self-doubt, and brokenness are all featured on ‘Apart’, mixing in smoothly with a background choir and a range of delectable harmonies, but areas of identity and uncertainty are scattered throughout the record. A skittish mood seems to bubble and froth around the grooves of the music; appropriately, it’s the DNA of 2020, with unrest and blunt force trauma at the forefront of the music.
The music’s soul seeks some kind of medicine, something to ease its pain. It wants to heal, it needs to heal, and healing is a constant theme of the music, which is visible both lyrically and in the balm of a choir or another, kinder chord progression. All of its progressions are warm, even in the midst of upset lyrics. Its songs pour from a still-raw wound. This is apparent from the melancholic opener ‘Warning’, and the sadder ‘Live Another Life’, which both detail a dying relationship. Closing track ‘Borrowed Eyes’ can’t get the energy to do anything else other than to sit and stare at a wall of static, but is this the end, or a cliffhanger? Son Lux understands that tomorrow is always a new day, and we look forward to the concluding third part of the trilogy when it eventually dawns.