Lucky Clover by Whisper Doll (Review)
I can think of few better experiences for a music lover than when you start listening to a new album by an unknown artist and, within the first few notes, you feel something click inside you, on an almost fundamental level. It doesn’t happen all that often — maybe a handful of times a year if you’re fortunate — but it’s undeniable, an instinctual sign that you’ve just discovered something special.
Such was my experience within the first ten seconds of “Bluebells,” the second song on Whisper Doll’s sophomore album, Lucky Clover. The breezy guitars and effortless melodic shifts unlocked something inside me, a sensation further confirmed when Fiona Tagami’s breathy voice made itself known. Along with her bandmates, Tagami taps into the same winsomeness that made The Cranberries and The Sundays so beloved, a winsomeness brought about by her efforts to capture and convey a sense of whimsy and magic with her music.
Thus the album’s title song finds her contemplating various possibilities: “Oh, if it wasn’t clear I hope it is now/I stand on the edge, I don’t know how… In the universe there’s only me and a lucky clover.” Meanwhile, the aforementioned “Bluebells” is filled with evocative imagery that captures various romantic and existential twists and turns before culminating in a plea for simple understanding. And if that wasn’t clear enough, album closer “So Sweet” finds Tagami musing “I don’t think like how I used to/I’m more alive, I’m more awake” before concluding that “So sweet is living life.”
If that was all that Lucky Clover had to offer, though, then the album might be accused of being sappy, even cloying. But all of the considerable dreaminess that washes over you from the speakers is tempered by some darker impulses and undercurrents.
“I Dream Next to You” certainly sounds as buoying and effervescent as the rest of the album, and then you realize the obsessive nature of Tagami’s seemingly romantic confessions (“I wanna taste his spit/I wanna sleep in his shirt”). And I must say, I did not expect to hear a critique of purity culture when I started listening to Lucky Clover, but that’s precisely what Tagami delivers with “Am I a Knife” when she sings “If all I am is sin, how can you look at me as real?/If all my words are temptation, what do you hear?” — and her critique is all the more pointed for the earnestness with which it’s delivered.
On their Bandcamp page, Whisper Doll calls themselves the “luckiest band in Brooklyn.” And in a very true sense they are, having developed such a rich and fleshed out sound for their sophomore album. But in the end, we listeners are the truly lucky ones, because we get to listen to and enjoy that sound as often as we like — and look forward to what’s next for Tagami and her bandmates.