I got homesick easily as a child. Even a slumber party at a friend’s house could plunge me into a sea of yearning for my home that was—and I kid you not—a 10-minute drive from where I was sleeping. I always imagined that homesick feeling as a cold eggshell forming around my heart—not numbing me, exactly, but preserving that sense of home while shutting out everything else. The result was a sort of a remove, an at-arms-length experience of whatever was going on around me. I was sad, yes, but it was also kind of beautiful, because my homesickness meant I had something I loved enough to miss. It was like a tiny taste of the old adage that grief is just love persisting.
That exquisite melancholy is how Swedish dream synth-pop duo Sally Shapiro’s music has always sounded to me. Producer Johan Agebjörn and the mysterious, unnamed female singer who performs as Sally Shapiro create music that possesses the cool reserve of Chromatics (unsurprisingly, they’re signed to Italians Do It Better, the label started by Johnny Jewel of Chromatics) and yet also a tenderness that emanates from Sally’s voice. While press materials frame their new album Ready to Live a Lie as the pair’s darkest record yet, an undercurrent of sadness has always been present in their songs about Sally (the character, rather than the singer).
That enduring sorrow is what’s always made their music so alluring—heartache wrapped up in drum machine, hypnotic synths, and the vocalist’s delicate delivery. Consider “Jackie Jackie” from the North American version of their 2006 album Disco Romance; “Why do I always end up in situations that are bad for me? How come I don’t fall in love with normal people?” Sally laments. Disappointment and regret are baked into their music. Sally Shapiro’s songs are less outwardly dramatic than those of the crying in the club variety; instead, these are tunes for looking wistfully into the middle distance in the club.
Compared to their previous albums, though, Ready to Live a Lie is more explicitly about how Sally—again: the character, not the vocalist—has been hurt and the lies she’s endured, or told herself in order to soldier on. Over the uptempo drums and moody synth ditty of “Hospital,” Sally sings of her friend’s current suffering and how it reminds her of her own troubled past: “They say you went to the hospital / Where the sick people are / And where I lost my first love.” There’s an angular bite to the melody of “Hospital” at times that provides a much-needed departure from Sally Shapiro’s usual ethereal longing.
Standout track “Guarding Shell” finds Sally reckoning with how her own defense mechanisms have closed her off from fully experiencing life. Layer upon layer of glittering synths drift in over a pulsating beat, setting the backdrop as Sally pleads for her lover to “Tell no more lies” before admitting that “In my guarding shell / I haven’t fared so well.” This is classic Sally Shapiro, with the vocalist’s honeyed delivery taking the edge off her bittersweetness.
“The Other Days” is also quintessential Sally Shapiro, channeling spacey, neon-tinged Italo disco sounds through their own Scandinavian lens. Laser-like pews of synth zing over rattling thwacks of drum machine. Sally admits her own part in the lies that surround her, showing from the album’s start that she’s grown, or at the very least begun the process of reflection: “But all the other days / So bittersweet when I lied to you / And think about the other days / I made-believe and I smiled at you.” The house-infused “Hard to Love” can feel overly cluttered at times with all the different aural elements completing for attention, but it’s still a solid bop that sees Sally drawn in by a lover’s lies: “Please don’t tell me the truth, if it hurts I’ll get bruised / I keep falling for the one who doesn’t cherish my heart.”
In between the record’s dancier moments, Sally Shapiro shows off their ability to create a compelling slow song, like the almost-’80s-ballad “Happier Somewhere Else” (Sally’s voice is too breathy, too ephemeral for that kind of melodrama) and easy listening treat that is “He’s Not You.” Boldly, they choose to end the Ready To Live A Lie on a similarly downtempo note with the relatively stripped back “Rain.” Downcast piano sets the scene as Sally whisper-sings in our ears, vocal samples conjuring a ghostly chorus behind her. On their other albums, there was always a sense of hope to Sally’s lovelorn lyrics, but here she seems resigned to her fate: “One day I’ve always been sure of / My dream will finally come true / But now I don’t really know cause / My dream is always of you.” The pitter-patter of rain in the background grows into a downpour. Our heart breaks for her, but also because of the song’s simple beauty—and therein lies the enduring appeal of a duo that knows their strengths lie in their luxurious, inviting sadness.
Clare Martin is a writer and cemetery enthusiast. She works in a library in Dublin, which involves less shushing than you’d think.
