The second album from singer-songwriter Laufey fulfills its promise on delivering a dreamy and relaxing listening experience. The 14 tracks feature simplistic but elegant production with a lush soundscape full of ambient piano and beautiful guitar and string backing including a feature on “California and Me” from the Philharmonia Orchestra. This creates an atmosphere which evokes feelings of nostalgia and peacefulness through which Laufey spins her stories around love and romance. The songs themselves can be described as pop songs with a jazzy twist. Devoted fans of jazz however may be left disappointed by the lack of any experimentation or challenge Laufey offers listeners. As such, the music is very accessible to the wider public but those looking for a strictly jazz album should look elsewhere. Due to their pop nature, the hooks on many of the songs are catchy enough to stick in the listeners head but not annoying or overly simplistic as is the case in many mainstream pop tracks. Oftentimes, Laufey’s melodies and vocal delivery evoke the sort of 1950s soft jazz pop mood of someone like Peggy Lee. A downside of the album is that while it expertly establishes the dreamy tone at the start of the atmosphere, it does not go anywhere new with this with Laufey choosing to run through songs which, while quite nice and pleasant, sound too similar in style and production to their priors to warrant any new takeaway. Because of this, all the songs seem to blend together immediately after they are heard. This diminishes the listening experience because of the lack of variety on the track list. While the songs individually are high quality and entertaining, combining them in the form of an album does nothing to elevate the components and may in fact hinder them by relegating the individual melodies to mere background music.
Bewitched opens with “Dreamer”, a nice opening number about not letting romantic love get in the way of greater goals. This song sets the tone of the album nicely and is dynamic enough to not be a chore to get through. Next comes “Second Best”, which is meandering and slow featuring a catchy hook and verse. The strings in the backing instrumentation do a lot to complement the smooth vocals. The following track, “Haunted”, falls in a similar vein of slow and moody unrequited love song which does little to differentiate itself melodically from the previous track especially with its weaker chorus. “Must Be Love” comes next and although it once again does not stray from the lazy and hazy atmosphere already established in the previous two songs, this is somewhat forgiven due to the catchy melodies which fill the song. The album continues with “While You Were Sleeping” which sounds the closest to the alternative pop on the album this far. It presents needed dynamism and levity to the album which at this point has had mainly slow and laid-back songs. While the track is certainly not high energy, it at least prevents the listener from falling asleep. Next comes “Lovesick” which leaves behind the subtle and classical orchestration in favor of an almost soft-rock pop anthem. While the stylistic variety is appreciated, the melody still echoes strongly of all the songs that came before and does not stand out as anything greatly different. Bewitched returns to being moody and contemplative on “California and Me” which runs in the same vein as the songs on the opening of the album with little making it stand out and an orchestral feature which only marginally stands out. After a short piano interlude comes “Promise” which is yet another moody unrequited love song. “From the Start” picks up the pace again with a bossa nova inspired tune. Admittedly the melody of this track is catchy and the song is one of the jazzier ones. At the tail end of the album, “Misty”, “Serendipity”, and “Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self” all stick to the soft, moody tone which Laufey is so comfortable writing and singing in, though there is little to stand out. Finally, the album finishes with the titular track “Bewitched” which is remarkably similar in both melody and production to all the other slow tracks on the album, although the string orchestration does stand out a bit more this time around.
While Bewitched certainly is a well written and produced album, it falls short of leaving a long-lasting impact and lacks quintessential tracks that I would see myself going back to frequently. That being said, it offers nearly an hour-long experience of calming and relaxing nostalgia which made it worth the listen at the end of the day. In the future, I would love to see Laufey take creative risks by leaning more into the jazz side of her music and not being afraid to explore a more dynamic emotional and sonic range in her work. Regardless of her next release, I will definitely be sure to give it a listen.