Tiny Vipers' second full-length album, Life on Earth, gives formula the finger. Jesy Fortino does only what she knows how to do, not taking anything but her own dark dreamscapes into account. The last album, Hands Across the Void, was sparse and magical, leaving me wanting more, while not really knowing where Jesy would take her music next. With her resources at Sub Pop, she could have easily pumped out some multi-tracked-vocalized, mediocre, folk-pop songs and rode the train (read: mega-promotion) all the way to Pitchfork town (insert: super-exposure). Or, I thought she might get a backing band, dumb it down, and maybe score a little more radio play. Maybe she was going to go electronic. I had no idea. And honestly, with her voice, any of those options would have been fine by me. Luckily for us, she did none of the above.

She took a risk. She went from eerily empty to completely desolate. Dark, to utter nothingness. Where there might have been some dual-tracked harmonies before, there is only one voice. Very few subtleties of the production from her last album remain. What does not need to be there, is not.

It's a simple idea: a guitar and a voice. It's dangerous because it's been done SO many times before. Anybody can record some acoustic songs and put an album out, though it's hardly ever worth listening to (unless you're the musician's grandmother). This is Tiny Vipers' risk, and I applaud her for taking it. Here, empty space and simplicity seem genius and grand.

Tiny Vipers find success where others fail because of Jesy's voice. It is everything. It is frail and broken, while being one of the most unique, poignant, and powerful voices in music, period. She has gotten even more comfortable with it since her last album, and it shows. She experiments a little more with her lower range. The result is devastating. It's like hers is the voice of the forest from her childhood that has been cut down. The one where she believed witches and monsters lived. She is the siren singing to the sailors on the ship, intent on drowning them all.

The narratives throughout Life on Earth take us across the beautiful dark hills and valleys of Jesy's mind, mingling with spirits so closely, we get a little ecto-plasm on our ceremonial robes. There are far more questions on this album than there are answers, and the answers only seem to bring up more questions... "But there is more to life than getting. There is more to the beginning."  

Life on Earth leaves me feeling similar to what it might be like for a child to watch the last candle die during a power outage with no one else home. Darkness eating the light with only blindness and childish fear waiting to keep me company. In this case, Tiny Vipers invites me to let go of those fears, find comfort and become a part of the darkness. I have, and I suggest you do the same.