I Feel Alive

Description

The artwork for TOPS fourth LP sets the tone for the music enclosed. Inspired by the work of photographer Thomas Ruff, TOPS vocalist Jane Penney stares bare-faced down the lens simple and un-posed, yet striking with starkness and vulnerability. The image captures the fraught nature of being alive, which the 11 tracks on the album explore. Pennys remarkably expressive voice is front and center. On this record more than any other, she sings with passion and energy, without sacrificing the honesty and introspection that gives her voice its depth. The songs cover a range of experiences but at its heart I Feel Alive is a record about resilience, the ways we can grow from for our pain and the strength that comes from learning to stand on your own as an individual. I Feel Alive is TOPS fourth full-length, following 2017s Sugar At The Gate and follows singles Echo of Dawn and Seven Minutes from last year. Their trademark sound of beguiling melodies over soft-rock grooves, with touches of 80s sophisti-pop and a contemporary experimental palette is intact, but bolder and more expansive. The songs manage to be both immediately catchy and deceptively deep, with Pennys literary lyrics adding an extra dimension to the pure pop hooks. Satisfying yet far from predictable, this is a record to be savored, revealing itself slowly, gaining power and poignancy with each listen.