Highs in the Minuses

Toronto songwriter/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Cornfield began her first album, 2011's Two Horses, with a fizzy and carefree song about wasting time and listening to Pavement. After a decade of growth and development, Cornfield is in a more mature emotional space on fourth album Highs in the Minuses, but both her sound and writing have deepened without losing the sparks of optimism that first ignited on her earliest songs. The set's 11 songs are diaristic and narrative-based, using vocal-forward indie folk instrumentals as backdrops for Cornfield's vivid lyrical vignettes. The subject matter is nearly always autobiographical, complex, and often heavy, but never comes off as bleak or heavy-handed. Cornfield's intricate portrayal of reeling from a breakup on "Headlines" is delivered with chiming acoustic guitars, a rhythm section pushing the song gently forward, and bright vocal harmonies. Likewise, cutting lyrics about toxic and deceptive romance on "Pac-Man" are softened by the song's warm arrangement. Cornfield focuses on memories from specific phases of life on several songs, homing in on details with a level of precision that goes far past the average indie rock lyricist. She audits a list of regrets and observations from early adulthood on "21" and accepts the part of herself that still feels like a teenager on "Blame Myself," both staggeringly well-written songs about remembering youth. "Out of the Country" shuffles through scenes of everyday life from a summer spent in Brooklyn in a way that places the listener directly in the heat and bustle of Cornfield's remembered experience. The song even calls back the "pavement/wondering where the day went" rhyme from the first song on her 2011 album for those paying close attention. Cornfield's songs set in the present are some of her most intense. The spare "Drunk for You" is a devastatingly direct moment on Highs in the Minuses, examining a rocky relationship that's prone to extremes. The song finds Cornfield alone at the piano, exhibiting a level of vulnerability and clarity on par with legendary storytelling songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. What's most striking about Highs in the Minuses is how Cornfield delves through crushing pain, disappointment, and anxiety without expressing a hint of bitterness or angst. The songs are raw but graceful, with an unrelenting openness that adds a strange sweetness to even Cornfield's most harrowing memories and heartbreaking lines. ~ Fred Thomas