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Feb 02, 2015 Natalie Prass By Melody Lau

There are a million and one songs about heartbreak in existence and while it is a universal, go-to theme, most of the results can often fall flat and generic. At its best, music devoted to the broken-hearted is simultaneously unique to its creator and relatable to listeners, a smattering of raw emotions that can be reconstructed to our likings. We may all have our ideal records of such already, but Natalie Prass is ready to deliver a new classic.

Prass’ stunning self-titled debut has been a long time coming and not just because she spent her most recent months touring in Jenny Lewis’ backing band. As she states on the soaring opener, “My Baby Don’t Understand Me,”: “Our love is like a long goodbye.” This is a documentation of a slowly collapsing relationship, one filled with the profound wisdom of someone who has had enough time to reflect on the events that occurred, but not far removed enough to stop referring to herself as “your fool.”

The album is bolstered by her label Spacebomb Records’ house band as well as producers Matthew E. White and Trey Pollard, who filled in virtually every space on the album with horn and string flourishes galore, shaping a wistfulness that follows Prass’ every emotion. When she signs off at the end of a verse on “Your Fool,” a group of horns sweep in to cross her T’s and dot her I’s; when she sighs “You pretend you as if you don’t know/how it’s bringing me down,” on “Why Don’t You Believe In Me,” it immediately flutters off in a trill of flutes. Every lyric is perfectly finished off by a musical accent and every instrument is strategically placed in the right place, all coming together to pull on those heartstrings harder than ever.

In a surprising twist, Natalie Prass ends on a very fairy-tale note, “It Is You,” a swelling number that sparkles like a Disney centerpiece. Prass sings with a belief in love that’s so pure it’s almost as if we hadn’t just sat through eight of the most heartbreaking songs. This is to show that even after a severe blow it is possible to still find hope in an over wrought idea like love. And that’s what a truly great heartbreak album should be able to do. (www.natalieprassmusic.com)

Author rating: 9/10