In a recent Mystery Mini Mix post by Magana (AKA Brooklyn’s Jeni Magana), we promised a full review of her debut EP, Golden Tongue. After a few weeks of hard listening, we’re pleased to report that the veritable talent-magnet that is Audio Antihero hasn’t let us down.
Opening the four-track release, ‘Get it Right’ is a half-paced pop song that threatens to tip over into something more angry or rambunctious, toeing the line between intimate and ominous and perhaps slipping into both. The track feels like a relationship coming to a head, approaching some climax that could still swing either way, though the conclusion passes before it can blossom into something meaningful or fall in a trail of flames. The song is perhaps a confrontation, but more likely the spiralling thoughts pre-/post-meeting, all the things they wish they were brave enough to say when face to face.
“If you could see what is in my mind
You would change before my eyes
You were red but my gold turned you green
So you stood there lying through your teethAnd get it right, get it right
If you’re gonna, gonna waste my time”
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‘Inches Apart’ is fragile and delicate, playing like a morning after some traumatic event, smells and sounds and phantom feelings wisping their way into the present, leaving the narrator to grasp whatever negligible weight they still hold. By comparison, ‘The World Doesn’t Know’ is expansive, the jittery instrumentation lurking behind Magana’s voice before growing deep and wide, expanding to fill the track.
The closing title track is infused with a melancholic energy in a way reminiscent of Daughter, lonely defiance as sung at the dead of night. “I dream of lives that are far away,” she sings, “Made an escape from a lonely home / Collected years from a novel’s page / So I’d never feel like I am alone”. The song gathers in intensity, the instrumentation breaking through the insularity and allowing the vocals to do likewise, soaring above the clatter with a palpable certainty, finally in possession of a golden tongue.
“Hey something has gone very wrong
Sometimes it will seep out slowly
And you’ll never even know
That you’re lonely until you’re oldOh Oh
If you can’t quite recall
Maybe you never knew”
Golden Tongue is out now and you can get it from the Audio Antihero Bandcamp page.