No matter how successful you are, life is full of ups and downs. To maintain equanimity and to persevere despite life's severe challenges is everyone's task, and don't let anyone's perfect instagram profile convince you it's the other way around. Elizabeth Powell, the main creative force behind Montreal based band Land Of Talk was going through some rough period after the release of their previous effort Cloak and Cipher. They were on a seven year hiatus. All demo recordings she was working on for Life After Youth were gone after her laptop broke, and then it came even stronger life attack. Her father survived a brain hemorrhage, so her role switched from a musician to a 24 hour caretaker. It is clear that music was irrelevant in this period of her life. She almost gave up on music. Luckily, her father persuaded her to get back to creating music and judging by Land Of Talk's third album, it was worth it.
Life After Youth is a very mature release. It is more than that. Songs from this album are a testament of her fight, a medical record of the healing of the wounds she "earned" during the hardest period of her life. Land Of Talk did not divert from their recognizable sonic matrix. They created a coherent album that unfolds with magnificent Yes You Were in which you can literally feel impatience and energy that Elizabeth was accumulating over the past seven years. The album sees appearances from Steve Shelly (Sonic Youth), The Besnard Lakes, Sal Maida (Roxy Music, Sparks), and Sharon Von Etten. Such an impressive guestlist signify a new beginning for Land of Talk. And If you listen to Loving and These Times, it becomes clear that every crisis is a chance for a fresh start. Thank you, Elizabeth, for overcoming your struggles, because it gives us all hope that we can do so as well. In these times, that is even more important than making a political album.
