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Rilo Kiley
"Under the Blacklight"
Warner Bros.
*** 1/2
Rather than dropping the two-word f-bomb so common to bad breakups, Jenny Lewis bids love goodbye with giddy resolve on the first Rilo Kiley album in three years. The object of her ferment could be ex-paramour (and RK guitarist) Blake Sennett, if that satisfies your Fleetwood Mac-ish jones for intra-band incest. But the target of Lewis' charmingly piquant brushoffs is immaterial. The L.A. of "Under the Blacklight" - Rilo Kiley's L.A. - is a micro-world of the jilted, the decadent, the imperiled.
That's what makes "Blacklight" the little (the record runs under 40 minutes total) thrill ride that it is.
The first and best of the breakup songs, "Silver Lining," kick-starts the self-therapy. A country tune in pop-rock disguise, it finds Lewis reveling in the aftermath: I never felt so wicked / As when I willed our love to die, and, she positively croons the chorus: Hooray, hooray, I'm your silver lining / Hooray, hooray, but now I'm gold. No less than Lucinda Williams would be proud (though I can't imagine her singing "hooray").
Lewis is more brazen still three tracks later, on the bubbly "Breakin' Up," affirming: Ooh! It feels good to be free. Even the Latin funk of "Dejalo" and the jaunty "The Angels Hung Around" smack of love-gone-bad.
Read last Thursday's Night&Day for the full review by David Coddon or click here.
Photo: Autumn DeWilde