‘Star’ is a wonderfully diverse piece of dark alternative pop music. KALA CHNG’s electronic soundscapes are immense in scale, loaded with emotional depth and an arrangement that feels seismic in nature. But at its heart, Star is an album about love. It’s a message of love, hope, joy, forgiveness, community and possibilities, that the artist wrote over the pandemic. Each song is from a different moment in those years, while she was listening to and witnessing the world around her.
From the opening track itself, ‘Love Saves the Day’, you’re treated with a single chorus line that feels so impactful. ‘Even if I don’t have wings, I won’t fall’. It feels heavy, almost weighing you down but simultaneously giving you that glimmer, that single sliver of hope that can power you through moments where the entire weight of the expectations and pain around you are all merely temporary. Of course, not the entire record feels as dark and loaded with emotional turmoil. The follow up tune, ‘Faded’, is much more excitingly produced and sung. Here, KALA CHNG’s falsetto adds a new dimension alongside synth work that is manifold more bright and shining. It oscillates between unbridled vibrancy and subdued darkness.
Lead by the powerful and gritty single ‘Blind’, KALA CHNG’s new record is a sublime piece of electro-pop imbued with so much emotion and melodic depth that there’s bound to be a collection of tracks within Star that you’ll be playing on repeat for a while to come. Find your star on this sky full of lights.