“Confession” opens with his best song. Supported by a broad, almost heroic bass line, “Going Out” has an immediate evocative force; Carla dal Forno glides over it with her immobile diction, entrusting the slightest cracks in her voice with the task of introducing suspicion. Few elements, precisely arranged, and a melody that seems to open up the landscape even as it makes it less hospitable.
It is from here that the record reveals its deception. At first listen, it appears to be almost the Australian musician's most welcoming work: light keyboards, elastic bass, dry but lively percussion; even the voice, once shielded by a post-punk haze, seems to have become closer, clearer, sometimes even smiling. Behind this composure, however, moves a feverish narrator, with an impassive tone and confessions already deformed by desire and obsession.
The Melbourne songwriter's fourth album was conceived in Castlemaine, where she settled after years spent in Europe, and was recorded in a studio inside a disused hospital. The place seems to have given the record its own mental acoustics: isolation, empty corridors, extended days. There is a lot of space between the instruments, but that void does not pacify anything; rather it becomes an echo chamber for thoughts that return, alter and, little by little, occupy everything.
“Nighttime” proceeds with the slow tone of an adult nursery rhyme: the bass in evidence, the almost narrative voice, the attention paid to the movements of the desired person to the point of bordering on a form of vigilance. There title track he changes pace, leaning towards a ska inflection and an almost childish lightness; the circular movement, however, becomes thinner in the long run. The contrast with the obsessive material of the lyrics is evident, perhaps even too programmatic. The four instrumentals scattered throughout the setlist do worse: decorative miniatures, devoid of real necessity. “Drip Drop”, with its out-of-season amusement park music, leaves above all the impression of a pause placed where greater concentration would have been needed.
The real songs, however, continue to open doors. “Under The Covers” envelops the domestic scene in a discreet electronic texture, made up of small ripples and details that barely break its serenity. “Blue Skies” returns to a clear and deliberately retro coldwave, while “I Go Back” opens up a denser and more surprising scenario: the voice emerges from a vegetation of keyboards, percussion and reverbs, subtle but obstinate, forced to make its way inside an almost lush arrangement
“Confession” convinces above all when Dal Forno accepts the discipline of the song form; much less when he takes refuge in his own miniatures or when the repetition, as in “Gave You Up”, loses its hypnotic power and stiffens into a wooden chant. It is a disc to be taken in bunches, choosing the best fruits: not always compact, not always necessary, but capable in the most successful moments of leaving a precise and persistent flavour.
07/27/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
