'Next Thing' Serves Up Homespun Honesty

Greta Kline—stage name Frankie Cosmos—is 22 years old and set to release her cheekily titled 51st album, “Next Thing,” on April 1. This prolific number of records is possible because Kline started posting self-made music from the age of 13 on her Bandcamp page. Nevertheless, “Next Thing” is widely regarded as her sophomore album since it is the second to officially be released. That she got picked up is no surprise: She looks like a human incarnation of a Wes Anderson film, and her earnest lyrics against a folk-pop backdrop do not disappoint. Although Kline’s short, upbeat tracks do not always succeed in their attempts to combine musical and vocal dynamics, they have a cleverly muted charm and embody true “folk music” as contemporary.

Kline’s biggest asset is her lyrics. They are unsettlingly familiar sentiments built from the fine details of life, creating the surreal experience of witnessing thoughts never realized. They are fantastically insightful, ranging from profound (“Once I was happy, I found it intriguing.”) to funny (“You are bug bites on vacation,” “From the street, I see your window, / I look up. Is that even your house?”) to meditations reserved for best friends (“Do I belong?”, “I don’t know what I’m cut out for,” “I’m 20, washed up already.”). Still, Kline shines brightest in her honest and frank moments, like when “Is It Possible/Sleep Song” slows its poppy tune in time for “I guess I just make myself the victim like you said. / That’s why when you treat me shitty you get mad. / It all makes sense now thanks so much. / Good-bye forever, what the fuck.” Chronicling small pains alongside the big, Kline perfectly captures the sad awkwardness and biting self-loathing felt at the odds and ends of life, equal parts wide-eyed melodicism and the “aw shucks” misfortune and redemption narrative of a children’s cartoon show.

Vocally, Kline floats in on a high, sweet voice that she often takes even higher into a falsetto. Her voice is flat in a way that cannot be chalked up to bad singing but rather to an honest Auto-Tune-less portrayal of voice, which on the whole works for her. Unfortunately, her voice is overshadowed by the album’s instrumentation, but in the moments when it does come through, it carries the song much more strongly. Such is the case in “Fool,” the album’s best song, which also has a fantastic technique of layered instruments dropping suddenly to a singular vocal melody. Experimentation with vocals, too, is a wonderfully done maneuver in “Sappho,” where her voice echoes itself in an unassumingly flooring manner. The upbeat, chirpy tendency of the song melodies, however, fail, belying the thoughtful and at times brooding lyrical concepts. This problem is most apparent in “Tour Good,” the most serious song of the album, which from a musical perspective could easily be mistaken as the happiest.

Against a solidly steady drumbeat carrying the songs at around 120 beats per minute, the rest of Kline’s band—drums, guitar, and keyboard—elastically moves through homogeneous but still charming melodies to provide what should be a stripped-down supplement to her voice. Yet the instruments often overpower her delicate vocals, and the instrumental portion winds up carrying the melody. Still, the orchestration is well done, especially in its refusal to cop out on the songs’ endings with fades or equally heinous closings. Experimentation is more prevalent in certain songs: For instance, the ethereal cymbal background of “Floated In” fits the song well; the layering in “Embody” is truly remarkable; “Outside with the Cuties,” the best encapsulation of the album, has an interesting underwater-keyboard sound—“O Dreaded C Town” begins with water droplets that spark the gloomily nostalgic and utterly satisfying tone with which this album closes. This last song and “Is It Possible/Sleep Song” are also the two points in the album where the tempo was varied, slower and faster respectively, which is an excellent change to the beat.

“Next Thing” has a cultivated charm, more finished than Kline’s previously self-produced music, but winking amateurism is still thriving in this refreshingly quiet album amid modern music’s caps-locked shouting match. While it sounds like an indie coming-of-age film soundtrack, “Next Thing” has a convincing level of realism that makes it the music of the people, not of the industry. It is a matte soundtrack, not a glossy release. It has problems with vocal and instrumental dynamics, but these are easily overlooked for Kline’s signature heartfelt sincerity. Complete with in-jokes, bare self-awareness (including breaking the fourth wall in “Outside with the Cuties”), and squeaking instrumentals, Kline has evolved from “Zentropy” to something better than what she had before: The songs are the same, but they hit much harder. Lowercase lyrics and a humble yet devastatingly sharp insight carry these songs through their shrugging, anti-virtuosic demeanor into the next wave of folk-pop.

“Next Thing” is out via Bayonet Records on April 1.

—Staff writer Victoria E. Sanchez can be reached at victoria.sanchez@thecrimson.com.