Sneaking out from behind a wall of decadence, we discover a fine beat just aching for its thrust to be appreciated by listeners in the pop dream that is “Shadows,” one of the three songs that can be found on Kirsten Collins’ new record, Floura. In Floura, Collins is bringing the heat to alternative pop like few others in the genre have in 2023, and despite its short running time of roughly ten minutes and change, this EP manages to grab the attention of anyone within earshot of its strut even in the most cursory of listening sessions.
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/KirstenCollinsMusic/
Stylistically speaking, none of the three tracks on this record are easy to categorize using the standard genre terminology that critics like me are tasked with employing when breaking down new music out of the underground and mainstream alike, but I’d stop short of saying that anything here feels or sounds scattered in any way. On the contrary, while “Thinking Bout You” and “Dangerous Love” are both dynamically lyrical to the point of being both dramatic and relatively familiar to the longtime pop consumer, they share a similar enough compositional formula that there’s never any debating who’s manning the controls behind the soundboard in either of these songs.
I love the arrangement of beats and synth melodies in “Dangerous Love,” and in my initial sit-down with Floura, it was instantly my favorite song here right out of the box. Vocally conservative where it counts but not stingy with our leading lady’s reverberating harmony, this track is perhaps the most limber and agile to behold on the EP, but it doesn’t overshadow the more calculated material here at all – contrarily, there’s an aesthetical balance to this record that has been absent from most of the indie pop output I’ve heard in 2023 – as unfortunate as that is to admit as a critic and music lover.
The beat is a bit too streamlined for what I would have preferred in the master mix of “Thinking Bout You,” but to some degree, I think it makes sense why the track was produced with as limited a drum presence as it was. “Thinking Bout You” is the most melodic song here by far, and though it could have used more of a kick in its slithering groove, it definitely ends up yielding one of the more surreal fever pitches of the EP when it reaches its conclusion which, ironically, is also the point in which the record comes to a close as well.
APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/floura-single/1676624015?at=1000lxtM&ls=1&uo=4
For those who are curious about the best in pop melody-making right now, Kirsten Collins’ Floura extended play is an awesome record worth checking out before the spring season expires. Los Angeles has always been known for producing some of the brightest players in all of indie music on the American side of the Pacific, and while Canadian-born Collins has no shortage of competition both in her scene and abroad, I think she is proving herself to be one of her scene’s heavyweight composers with the release of this latest captivating collection of songs.
Heather Savage
