Alex Maas Album Review

Unexpectedly, one of the most beautiful and hopeful albums of the year comes from Black Angels singer Alex Maas. Luca capstones 2020 with a reminder of what's truly important and wondrous in the world. Named for his preschooler, the solo bow strips back the local psych revivalist's sound, still swaddled in vocal reverb but patient and swaying with soft strings. "Slip Into" evokes the 13th Floor Elevators both titularly and with a fever dream of influences fading in on a sound of folkies Bill Fay or Tim Hardin laced with Portishead rhythms, while "The Light That Will End Us" sets a theme by inverting the Black Angels' war dreams with a combating light from within. Notably, Luca means "bringer of light." Likewise, "Special" strikes tender, a lullaby set to the Velvet Underground alongside cribside meditation "500 Dreams." Luca embraces a beautific vulnerability, whether falling in love ("Been Struggling") or fearing fatherhood's weight ("What Would I Tell Your Mother"). By the 10 tracks' closing couplet of "American Conquest" and lo-fi "The City," the turn toward Maas' more typical tenebrous worldview becomes prismed with a new glow, invective against atrocity replaced by a resolution to create something better, the possibility of the world realized anew.