Through A Portal and Up Indeed.

Lights started out as a songwriter for Canadian television show, Instant Star, but she has made the transition to a solo singer.  She’s thriving in the electropop sound, and her latest album, Little Machines, is no exception.

Prior to this week’s release of the album, Lights released two videos for the singles “Portal” and “Up We Go.”  “Portal” acts as the first track on the album and is a slow start, but it is similar to going through a portal.  Make it through, and you will be rewarded.  The video itself has a camera positioned on a car dashboard driving on an open road.  Lights is behind the wheel as she introduces this new album.

“Up We Go,” the album’s lead single, is an optimistic tune about having only one place to go.  There’s a certainty in the tune that isn’t the normal pop-bounce, but it’s meant to be that way.  “Everyone here is ready to go / it’s been a hard year and I only know / from down this low / it’s only up we go.”  The track is synth heavy and determined.

Other tracks, like “Oil and Water,” “Slow Down,” and “Don’t Go Home Without Me” offer the softer and retrospective side of Lights’ songwriting (she has a writing credit on every track on her album) and has been in the industry since she was a teen.  The mix of the slower and the catchy tracks, like “How We Do It,” “Same Sea” and “Muscle Memory,” prove she knows what she’s doing and has a chance to finally break out in the states.  The bonus tracks on the album are also worth grabbing.

If there’s ever a time for her to break through in the states, it would be now.  Lights brings to the table a sound that is all her own and provides a solid pop album.  The choruses in each track show off Lights’ love of changing the rhythms of vocal lines in a way that makes each song catchy and all her own.