Fazerdaze: Crafted, economic rock. Images / supplied / Frances Carter
Fazerdaze: Crafted, economic rock. Images / supplied / Frances Carter
Now living in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Amelia Murray (aka Fazerdaze) delivered in 2017 her excellent debut album Morningside – named for the Auckland suburb – on which the classy, mostly upbeat guitar-driven pop belied a downward arc of insecurity and uncertainties in a relationship.
Her 2022 EP Break! (“something gotta break,something’s gotta give”) came in the aftermath of touring, burnout and emotional distress: “Did you think all this wouldn’t have taken its toll … as I whisper all my secrets through a microphone” on Overthink It.
Soft Power is the culmination of self-discovery and personal empowerment, extending the sonics of Break! through electronic beats and cinematic-scale synths to swell her crafted, economic pop rock.
So Easy with its woozy bass invites phone-waving from swaying festival crowds after dark, Bigger has a constrained Velvet Underground/Nico throb overlaid by smears of synths and Cherry Pie harks back to the early electro-pop spirit of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the Cure.
She teases with the entrancingly European-sounding, delightfully breezy Dancing Years and the fragile, subdued whisper of A Thousand Years with, “I watch the world go by … I’ve fallen through the cracks.”
The brief intimacy of Sleeper and the shimmering City Glitter close the self-contained album in radiant colours.
As before, Fazerdaze’s production places her melodic vocals in an echoed middle ground, allowing private thoughts to remain slightly distant.
“I’m no longer making myself small to make others feel big,” she has said. “I’m taking up all the space now and I’m not apologising for it.”
