soccer Committee - ♥ / lamb

It took more than a decade for Marika Baars to release her last collection of songs as Soccer Committee. Although arriving somewhat unannounced, Tell From The Grass ended up one of the more striking returns of 2021 and appears to have gifted Baars with the confidence to more actively keep on at the path she's so expertly laid out for herself. Mildly maddening title aside,  ❤/Lamb is a consummate work of ethereal folk lamentations which makes extensive use of an undeniably remarkable voice. Opener No Turn To Harm situates the listener broadly in the same space as that last record, a downer hymnal not unlike What Would the Community Think period Cat Power. Comparisons with Ms Marshall end there this time, as Baars makes a significant turn towards a type of droning chamber song that allows her to explore her tonal range, and to no little emotional impact. She reaches an apotheosis with the eight-minute long acapella, Imagining You In The Room, a restrained composition of such gravitas it's in need of an altar. Better still is that whilst these five songs are undoubtedly grand in tone - not least because of the capacity of that voice - they're also elemental and intimate too (that'll be because of that voice again, but for different reasons), the divine close-mic-ed, whispered directly into your ear.