Sasha Cay - Spin
Lighter Than Air
Released September 22nd, 2023
Some albums belong to a certain moment in time. Some belong to the morning, some belong to the night, some are there to carry you through the transitional parts of the day. This record exudes that idea with its ability to make you feel comforted and warm no matter your environment. Canadian cold weather indie rocker Sasha Cay packs a wonderful and memorable punch with their sophomore LP Spin. As amazing as Sasha’s debut record Arthur’s Party Trick is, Spin takes Sasha’s songwriting and production to a new place of artistic invention. The production on this record comes across sounding warm and vintage while still coming off fresh and exciting. The structure and arrangement of the songs change track to track with a sense of cohesive freshness, never repeating a structure twice but keeping the musical tone cohesive with each track. The track that opens the album “Sugar” fades in with a breezy guitar melody followed by a calmly performed vocal part to chill your thoughts and set the mood for the rest of the record.
The lyrics and vocals sound both incredibly thought out and personal while also sounding very natural and effortless. The first five tracks hit in a beautiful order with their cohesive flow of calming and cozy singer songwriter bangers. Right as you start to speculate the direction of the tracklist you get hit with the spacious and experimental interlude “Is / Not'' to ease the transition into the crushing and cold “See You Soon” which might easily be my favorite track on the record. Sasha delivers a very emotional and totally badass vocal performance backed with a crazy drum part and squealing dissonant guitars.
As we get to the latter half of the record a darker and more complex side of Sasha Cay’s songwriting comes to light. The instrumentation gets slightly broader with the track “Man Man Man” with beautiful and haunting violins floating through the track giving the lyrics a sinister yet crushing instrumental to sit on. Spin the title track to close the record out slowly builds off of the repetitive and catchy guitar line and builds tension and high emotion near the end of the track. The intensity within the track really transcends the whole record and lets you sink into every note and lyric you have heard in the last 30 minutes. Sasha’s uniquely brilliant songwriting proves to reinvent and push boundaries in the indie rock music world. If you are in need of a beautiful, moody and honest record, then I cannot recommend this more. Enjoy.
- Ben Lock
