by Ljubinko Zivkovic (@zivljub)
There may be more singer/songwriters around now than even the most ardent fans of the genre can handle. Still, there is quite a number of them that have quietly and unassumingly been coming up with some excellent, often subdued music, that is both subtle yet simply crawls under the listener's skin with its music and lyrics. On such artist is Liza Victoria, who works under the moniker of Lisa/Liza. For ten years now, Victoria has been part of Maine's left-field DIY music scene but has also toured with Jens Lekman and Advance Base and shared bills with Angel Olsen, Kaki King, Lucy Dacus, and Julie Byrne.
You don't often get to share bills with better-know artists, just like that, and Victoria's latest album Breaking And Mending just goes on to show why. Throughout the eight songs, from the opener “Felt Twice” to closing “Tree Line,” in most cases just with her voice and guitar, Victoria is able to keep musical and lyrical tension with melodies, chord progressions and lyrics that never reach mundane or become to introverted.
The subtlety of Victoria’s songwriting is underlined lyrically on songs like “Felt Twice,” sharing “They tell me ‘the body minds’ / said that, the mind was the body / well each time that I fell / I felt twice / What else can I tell everybody?" At the same time songs like “Fight For You” and “Kisses and Flowers” present themselves as excellent gems waiting to be uncovered, proving that Breaking And Mending is one of the better psych folk albums of 2023 so far.