Natalie Prass' debut LP gracefully stares down our most intense emotions

Of all the facets of human life, the countless flavors of love might be the most complex and unpredictable. We have a better explanation for how the universe began than we do about why two people fall in love, fall out of love, or do heroic or horrific things when motivated by love. As such, the enigmatic nature of love and relationships remains one of the most compelling subjects in popular music. Tunes about all kinds of love outnumber those about the Higgs boson by a substantial margin.

That's the core strength of Natalie Prass' self-titled full-length debut. The nine-song suite analyzes every painful angle of a breakup, confronting the overwhelming multitude of mixed emotions without flinching, never shying away from excruciating detail, but never letting melodrama take control, either. The R&B-oriented production of the album, courtesy of Prass' grade-school friend Matthew E. White, offers a lean, agile take on the string, brass and wind orchestrations that hallmark late-'60s Motown and Philly soul, while riding on a greasy, gospel-inflected rhythm section reminiscent of the Muscle Shoals sound from the same period. It's a perfect platform for the former Berklee College of Music student's near-operatic vocal range to convey intense emotions with grace and introspective restraint.

The album opens with "My Baby Don't Understand Me," a funeral requiem for a love gone sour, which builds from a solemn whisper to a full-throated, grief-stricken cry in the refrain, "Our love is a long goodbye." The bridge in "Bird of Prey" — "All this run-and-chase / It's almost like I planned it / It's out of hand / It's out of my control" — portrays the dual nature of pursuit in a relationship, showing how quickly passion can turn into possessiveness. "Your Fool" is the singer's kiss-off to her guy who's sleeping around, tempered by the admission that she'll "always be [his] fool," while "Why Don't You Believe in Me" probes the stubborn sense of self-recrimination that hangs over most breakups.  

Several well-placed digressions from soul sounds alter the pattern without letting up on the intensity. "Christy" addresses the other woman in a love triangle. Singing in her highest register, Prass alternates between forlorn and cautious, while a string quartet swirls around an icy harp's unsettling sustain. There's a dub-tinged reprise of "Your Fool," delivered in a ministerial tone not unlike Prince's iconic opening sermon in "Let's Go Crazy." The singer's stifled laugh as she shifts voice to croon the chorus is a sigh of relief — proof that she can smile at herself through the pain. The album closes with a major change in tone: "It Is You" sounds like a lost Rodgers and Hammerstein piece from the same vintage as The Sound of Music, but this ode to infatuation is dark and uncertain around the edges, capturing the fragile, inscrutable nature of the bonds between lovers.

No record is perfect, but this one's few cons are easy to recast as pros. Two of the album's nine songs, "Bird of Prey" and "Violently," appeared previously on Prass' 2011 EP Sense of Transcendence, but these versions are dramatic re-arrangements of the electro-tinged originals. That shows the both strength of her writing and performance as well as the quality of the production — the songs come first. This record has been on the shelf for two years, but there's an upside: Working around her tenure in Jenny Lewis' touring band, Prass has already finished two more albums.

Perhaps the most bittersweet note: After nine years of honing her craft in Middle Tennessee, Prass relocated to Richmond, Va., this winter to be closer to Spacebomb, the collective of musicians that plays on the album and shares its name with White's studio and label, and to remove herself from the competitive atmosphere created by so much talent in close proximity.

"It's cutthroat [in Nashville]," Prass told The Guardian. "If you want it, you have to get your shit together, you have to shape up really quickly." If anything proves that Prass has her shit together, it's how she and the band carry the weight of this heavy, dark album with such nuance that it's a pleasure to listen again from the top.

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