Clairo Puts Us Under Her Spell in 'Charm'
Photo: Lucas Creighton
Beloved indie darling Clairo has released her latest album Charm, and it’s just as promised—a truly charming work of songwriting mastery. Clairo bottles up authenticity and pours it into the warm wandering of acoustic piano, string arrangements, clarinet melodies, and organic percussion. Lead singles “Sexy to Someone” and “Nomad” laid out the palette of Charm for listeners: sun-spotted greens and snowy breezes of bright. It’s laden with the delicacy we know and love from Clairo but delves into a soft-spoken lust and resolve we get to learn as the album unravels.
Clairo ventures into playfulness in “Second Nature,” a laugh lilting over rolling, rhythmic piano chords. As the track opens beat by beat, listeners are let into the casual euphoria of organs buzzing and a counter-melody in the clarinet teasing the vocals. Charm dances throughout this instrumental playground, siphoning the singular feeling of live performance and infusing it into an album glittering with practiced, recorded finesse. “Terrapin” embodies this, with its jazzy piano exploration. “Add Up My Love,” also, invites reminiscence and resolution into the same sunny song.
There’s a special warmth to the vocals on “Thank You,” a track that sounds like the feeling of that very phrase. Clairo paints hilly landscapes with vocal parts that move like second nature, no pun intended. They swoop in and out of focus with the ease of a friend harmonizing over the car radio, at times conversational and others devotional in their performance. Humming low, resonant tones and soaring across whispery highs, Clairo captures an organic quality that is simplistic though anything but simple. “Slow Dance” falls in step with this naturalistic approach, the entire track blanketed in layers of soft vocals. She weaves in a piano motif twinkling with hints of early Sufjan Stevens, and the cycle of it is a slow dance in itself. Clairo masterfully unfolds her intention, intertwining instruments until they ache like a memory still warm to the touch.
The poetic spill of Clairo’s lyric-writing also shines in “Slow Dance,” as she muses, “What is it that’s keeping one foot out / And the other crawling in bed? / And what is it that’s keeping you alone / And leaving after we slow dance?” There’s a sharpened sweetness to her words across Charm, as she seamlessly melts mundane expression into prose. Like in “Pier 4,” where gut-punch questions coast on easy melodies, “What’s the cost of it, of being loved? / When close is not close enough?”
Closing out Charm, “Pier 4” is a surprising standout track. Clairo bares down to acoustic guitar, piano, and light harmonies, inviting listeners into one last intimate moment. After a cohesive album of determined delicacy and earthy hues of desire, this song feels like an epilogue to the feeling of it all. We’re left in a haze of curiosity, almost insisting we start the album over again. Charm is enamoring like that, yet another spell Clairo’s put us under.
Listen to Charm below:
