The Weather Station

★★★★ How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars FAT POSSUM. CD/DL/LP

Stellar overdrive: balladdriven companion piece to 2021’s Ignorance.

Environmental and emotional collapses were the core of The Weather Station’s last LP Ignorance, themes rich enough to inspire the overspill of

ballads now filling How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars. Without drums or percussion, Tamara Lindeman’s voice and piano set the vigilant, wondering tone; clarinet, saxophone and flute allow subtle fluctuations in light and heat. Endless Time is a humanscale meditation on global catastrophe, the shame of unthinking consumption blurred by Joni Mitchell-style sensory flashes – “Roses from Spain/Lemons and persimmons in December rain”. On To Talk About, Lindeman tries to think bigger than love but can’t; Sway is a heart-in-mouth moment of communion. These personal-and-political threads knot tightly on Stars, where she sings, “I swear to god this world will break my heart.” A companion piece, maybe, but these songs can stand alone.