“Babe I know you’ll be so bad for me / bad for me / bad for me / bad / But you make me so / weak in the / weak in the weak in the knees,” Olive Tiger sings on the first track of Until My Body Breaks, her vocals coming in steely and sensuous over violin that’s easy to get lost in. “Can’t you see what you / do to me / do to me / every time that I find myself / find myself / find myself / within you?”
But Olive, who has for several years been growing steadily into that voice — and into the New Haven music scene — isn’t giving listeners a window into her romantic tendencies so much as issuing a directive to them: She’s here, all grown up, with her complicated heart splayed open, and it’s on them to find something of themselves in her voice and the accompanying instrumentals. Sure, there are plenty of lyrics into which one may read a breakup, a hangup, a pickup, a hook up. But far more interesting is the album’s invitation, perhaps the first of many for Olive Tiger, to embark on an aural trip that will be both familiar and not, but suggests something new, and still evolving.
The clock on Until My Body Breaks starts ticking with a catchy, clean drumbeat and looped vocals on “Dark.” Olive Tiger has long thrived on these kinds of obsessive, synthy layerings, and they make an appearance Until My Body Breaks without ever getting cloying, bordering on jammy in tracks like “I To You.” It’s clear why this piece has become both a staple of the group’s sets and a crowd favorite — even without members Olive (vocals, guitar, cello, looper), Jesse Newman (violin, electronics) and Dane Scozzari (drums) playing it live on stage, the lyrics become hypnotic, a dizzying meditation on the nuance and abilities of the human voice. It’s easy to close your eyes and freefall through them, delighting in the feelings they conjure before reflecting on their weight.
More exciting, though, are pieces that showcase Olive’s vocals and indulge her folksy, completive sensibilities. At their best, these are effortless and wandering, ear-catching as they jump from breathy to toned and full-bodied. When she cries out to nighttime in the beginning of “Dark,” you believe it’s coming on just like that. In “Lament,” she begs the listener — or maybe a past lover, or maybe a collision of both — “help me! Baby I can’t see whether this is for real.” “The Killer’s Ballad” is the lovesick pendant to the Decemberists’ “The Shankill Butchers” that you never knew you needed.
Until My Body Breaks is an intensely satisfying first album. It’s not perfect — some songs don’t jive entirely with the instrumentals — but it’s not meant to be. It’s the announcement that the group has arrived, really arrived, and its members want to stick around and experiment for a while. Newman’s and Scozzari’s growth as musicians shows all through the album, and Olive Tiger refines her sound without getting pretentious or self-conscious about it. The band has fun throughout. Really, the only question the listener might have is: What’s next? Or perhaps, when can I start it again?
Until My Body Breaks is available from Bandcamp and the group’s website starting August 19. That evening is also a release show at Lyric Hall.
