The opening song from the second album by LA-native Pearl Charles owes more to Abba than the Americana of her debut full-length release. But despite its gleeful, Dancing Queen-worthy piano, Only for Tonight touches on a far less glittery message: painful emotional attachments following a one-night stand.
Magic Mirror embraces this kind of duality: the devastating Don’t Feel Like Myself takes the listlessness of a breakup (“Guess I ran out of places to be / But I can’t go home any more”) and pairs it with the breezy slide-guitar and brushed percussion of Dreams-era Fleetwood Mac. Don’t Feel Like Myself pairs the Carpenters’ starry melodies with devastation: “Too scared to die but barely alive / And I don’t even feel like myself.” And Imposter, about harnessing psychedelics to escape imposter syndrome, flirts with the bouncier parts of Carole King’s Wrap Around Joy.
When emotions warm, Charles loses command of her musical touchstones, the potential for nostalgia and poignancy smothered by sentimental pastiche. The Bonnie Raitt-inspired As Long As You’re Mine is flat, Charles suggesting that war and climate change don’t matter when you’re in love; excellent harpsichord solo aside, Sweet Sunshine Wine is cloyingly sweet: “For you I’m switching on my love light, every time,” she sings. Such a moony emotional about-turn sits incongruously beside the wreckage evidenced earlier, as well as the message of the title track: that life’s answers come from within. If the reality is actually that a new relationship heals all, perhaps the mirror wasn’t all that magical.
