SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: SKYE WALLACE – THE ACT OF LIVING

SKYE WALLACE
THE ACT OF LIVING
TINY KINGDOM MUSIC

Following a lengthy run of singles, Toronto-based artist Skye Wallace has returned with her fifth full-length album, The Act Of Living. Co-produced by Hawksley Workman, The Act Of Living sees Wallace enter a new musical era unlike anything she’s done before.

Opening with the haunting and sparse soundscape of “Marrow”, The Act Of Living greets the listener with an icy grip. The song starts with Wallace’s melancholic and melodic vocals set on top overbearing and slightly distorted drums and minimal synths.  The chorus is even more stark than the verse as the drums and synths drops out to be replaced by strings.  The song grows from here, with each section developing organically with additional instrumentation, demonstrating the strength of Wallace’s songwriting and attention to production. In juxtaposition of the opening song, Wallace immediately follows with “Tough Kid”, a song led by synth bass, a simple beat, and fuzzy electric guitars that cut through the song. Wallace uses this arrangement to soar with lush and ethereal vocals.

Musically, The Act Of Living stands as a strong departure from Wallace’s past albums, one that sees the singer-songwriter play with electronic textures alongside live instrumentation. The result is a record that feels chillingly vulnerable and incredibly genuine to Wallace – something that is certainly challenging given how much of a departure The Act Of Living is. Highlights include the poppy “Blood!”, the acoustic closer “You Don’t Still Have A Hold On Me”, the driving “What Is Real?”, the groovy “Dead End”, and, of course, the title track, “The Act Of Living”, which has the brazen audacity to declare life a “death cult”.

Much of the arrangements, instrumentation, and textures on The Act Of Living feels as though it is longing for that of 1980’s pop. While this feels like an influence at the heart of the record, Wallace has reimagined this in a truly alternative fashion that feels fully modernized. Through this, Wallace has delivered an album as dark as it is beautiful as she dances around the macabre with a melodic, and likely tired, grin that echoes the generational feeling of millennial living in the 2020s. There is a masterful quality to the songwriting and production alike on this record as Wallace continues to find and expand her voice as an artist. Through such a sense of thematic resonance, paired with an experimental sonic pallet, Wallace has broken entirely new ground on The Act Of Living that ultimately marks a new creative chapter to her artistry.

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