Two Adult Women In Love

Kaia's continuing musical explorations over the years have become a considerable body of work; Two Adult Women in Love isn't its culmination, but is a new peak of achievement that matches the mountain photo on the cover. On the one hand, "When My Hair Was Long" is a classic American song with a buried steel guitar twang and a direct and gentle folk/pop arrangement, and very Kaia on the other, a reflection on identity and time delivered with understated but never unfocused energy. The choppy moment on the break of "A Clade Called Cetartiodactyla" and the staggered arrangement of "We Once Were Dogs" -- vocals overlaid in what sounds like two separate but parallel performances over a separate, slightly slower paced piano part -- are examples of the kind of turns that mean the album is never "just" a set of straightforward songs. But it's not a case of such moments acting an assurance back to a louder past so much as moments acknowledging the spikiness of life that never departs, even as the delicacy evident in the sparkling filigrees of "Field Guide" and how "Love Like Light" matches "We Once Were Dogs" like a calmer, back in sync coda. Sometimes there's a careful contrast drawn -- "The Rogue" suggests singular focus but the arrangement builds into a multi-voice chorus and rolling performance led by violins and drums in turn. It's not far removed from indie rock's recent theatrical grandiosity, but never turns into bombast for its own sake, something also wonderfully managed on "The Children's Arboretum" as the choruses build up just so, then ease back. Then there are songs like "Ants and Crickets," which is the kind of softly tense, beautifully arranged and performed song that could be a Go-Betweens performance, and the entrancing minimalism of "Regeneration," that turns into a steady swagger, a rock ballad that actually works as it builds up to a sweeping rush and a final, focused, but anthemic guitar part. ~ Ned Raggett