Tango With Lions, an Anglophone Greek collective of “day-dreamers, hard-workers and music-lovers” gained worldwide recognition with the popularity of “In a Bar”, a single from their debut album Verba Time (2010). Five years after the release of their sophomore album A Long Walk (2013), singer-songwriter Katerina Papachristou returns with more dreamy indie-folk introspection in the form of The Light (January 19, 2018): a collection of nine songs that cycle through “exaggerated hope, sarcasm, nihilism, nostalgia, love, broken relationships, death and life” in the pursuit of a sense of wholeness.
On the album’s cover, Papachristou stands pensively in front of a wall in a series of concentric shadows, casting a larger shadow behind her. The image is an apt visual representation of the album oscillation between moods and sonic styles. Papachristou’s graceful vocals hew to a middle ground, sounding neither wholly distraught nor fully jubilant. The lyrics are devoid of specific references, opting for a kind of universally mythic personal voyage.
On atmospheric opener “Back To One”, haunting instrumentals swirl around Papachristou’s venture into the perilous emotional unknown: ‘Seas are wide but I will trust them/ I am broken but the sun is mine’. It does not take too long for the album to delve into more vivacious fare, however. “Last Thrill” and “Restless Man” serve as sonic portraits of excessive optimism, even if the folky carefreeness they represent appear to be found only in brief and isolated moments: ‘You are a restless man/ And I’m a restless girl/ We dance the way we did as kids/ Then we do the grown-up style’. “What You’ve Become” relies on a sitar-esque guitar for its fiery energy and ends with a brief, light-hearted chuckle. If you listen closely to the lyrics, however, you will find an unexpected mention of ‘Ventures and acts of crime/ In a cold-blooded sun’ and a nagging existentialism: ‘Do you hear voices?/ And do they approve/ Of what you’ve become?’
The album plumbs its darkest depths in penultimate track “The Go Betweens”, a hauntingly dreary, dramatic and evocative portrait of a former flame, now extinguished: ‘All the treacherous ways you found/ To show your love around/ All the meaningless lies you spread/ To make your heart look dead’. The album’s French closer, “L’Ombre” (The Shadow), offers an uncertain solace “for all those who close the door because they are afraid and cannot sleep”.
Lead single “Proof of Desire” stands apart by attaining an enigmatic balance between tentative hope and utter despair. Backed by a slow-burning guitar riff, Papachristou meditates on the psychological hurdles of entering into a new relationship while being emotionally enervated: ‘Is this the kind of love you’re posing in/ And then expires you?’. The sparse instrumentals intensify and howl eerily after she concludes ‘I am a little scared to tell you the truth/ Seems to me it’s always leading up/ To a proof of desire’ and bravely announces her intention to dive right in: ‘I’m heading to a storm with no plan out/ I’m hanging from a rope/ Like a fruit that inspires’. The track resumes its slowcore pace as it ends, alluding to the internal chaos one must carefully meander through in the quest for calm.
