In the spirit of the psychedelic 60s trend, MARINA’s long awaited return from her four-year reprieve after shedding the “and the Diamonds” part of her name comes in the form of a double album called LOVE + FEAR (because you cannot have one without the other, n’est-ce pas?). Though originally intended to be released all at once on April 26th, MARINA’s antsiness got the better of her, inciting her to put the first half, eight tracks of pure handmade heaven, out on Thursday, April 4th.
Commenced, on that note, by “Handmade Heaven,” the video of which paints MARINA in just that, the serene, “pro-happiness” tone of the record is established from the get-go, with the outpouring of love not just for nature but also man building on “Superstar,” a single that emphasizes one’s lover as being tantamount to the sort of person worth celebrity-worship in terms of just how much she looks to him for guidance and reassurance. This much is accented by MARINA crooning, “You’re my superstar/When I’m afraid, when the world’s gone dark/Come and save my day, you’re my superstar.” For only the shining starlight of the person you’re in love with can turn the world from black and white into Technicolor (mind you, “superstars” only existed in the Golden Age of Hollywood, or in the 90s, at the latest).
The marveling at the wonder of life and la natura persists on “Orange Trees,” a track created in honor of the island where MARINA’s father hails from in Greece, Lefkada. Brimming with the effervescence associated with sun-soaked beaches and fruits far more exotic than oranges, the jubilant song transitions into the more melancholy and bemoaning, “Baby,” a track MARINA was featured on last year upon the release of Clean Bandit’s sophomore record, What Is Love? So yes, a bit of a cheat single to be included on LOVE, but damn, it’s so difficult to fill an entire album with pure genius that one can hardly blame MARINA for using “filler” when the opportunity arose.
Taking the musical and philosophical timbre back to a more upbeat note, “Enjoy Your Life” follows with the alchemical take on turning problems into something to be enjoyed rather than feared. Embraced, rather than evaded. Yet, one (or maybe just one with a sick mind) imagines “Enjoy Your Life” to be the sort of perfect ironic song to punctuate a scene in a movie of a stockbroker post-Crash of ’29 falling to his suicide-induced death as the lyrics, “Sit back and enjoy your problems/You don’t always have to solve them/’Cause your worst days, they are over/So enjoy your life/Yeah, you might as well accept it/Don’t you waste your time regretting/’Cause your worst days, they are over/So enjoy your life.” And then splat. Because yes, while the sentiment behind “Enjoy Your Life” is all lovely and in keeping with MARINA’s intensified hippy-dippy aura of late (she’s clearly been spending time with LDR), one would take it much more to heart if it was sung by someone without a plush bank account.
“True” puts a spotlight on MARINA’s recent manifestos on confidence, and how, though it might take years to be deprogrammed of other people’s opinions, it’s well-worth it in the end when you finally realize just how much “you don’t need nobody else/When you are true, true to yourself.” For yes, on an album centered on the exploration of what love means and how it affects us, there can be no more important component than self-love.
Although having a strong sense of self and confidence can aid one in the bizarre and inexplicable journey of existence, it doesn’t make life any less complicated to fathom or endure. Like a complement to Robyn’s “Human Being,” “To Be Human” thusly explores how all of humanity is allied in their love and fear (except Donald Trump–said in Damian’s voice when he snaps, “None for Gretchen Wieners”). Once more showing that the greatest poetry of all exists in pop music, MARINA muses, “I like to think about how we all look from afar/People driving fancy cars look like beetles to the stars/The missiles and the bombs sound like symphonies gone wrong/And if there is a God, they’ll know why it’s so hard” (note that timely use of the pronoun “they” to describe God’s gender[lessness]. Because they’re just an amorphous asshole, clearly).
The celestial, 80s electropop-infused “End of the Earth” is the ideal cap to this portion of the record, coalescing all the ruminations of the past seven tracks into one stunning outer body experience. It is also worth noting that the concept of being in “slow motion” appears for the second time (as it did on “Enjoy Your Life” with “When we’re down low/Everybody’s moving ’round in slo-mo”), denoting that MARINA both experiences the pleasures and pains of life at this speed and recommends that others do the same in order to truly appreciate what it’s all about. For ecstasy cannot be understood without agony and vice versa. And, to underscore just how much life has no value without love, MARINA insists, “I’d still follow you down/slow motion, no sound/To the edge of the world.” Re-emphasizing the feelings presented on “Superstar,” MARINA further declares, “If we’re torn apart, then I won’t let go/’Cause wherever we are, it feels like home.” Once again, it all smacks of the tragedian flair of MARINA’s friend and contemporary, Lana Del Rey. But MARINA brings a much more danceable feel to such melodrama.
So even if MARINA unabashedly admits that despite all the things she’s done and seen, she still doesn’t know what it means to be human, LOVE (and its insistence that love and kindness are the most significant factors in a life well-lived) is a good start. One can only imagine how FEAR will play out in terms of exploring a less “everything is insane but also beautiful and hunky dory” tack.
