Twenty genre-spanning songs compile into one album to create the newest piece from indie-folk duo Andy Baxter and Kyle Jahnke, better known by the name of Penny & Sparrow. The record, “Lefty,” rawly displays topics of growth, solitude, and intimacy while integrating both electric pop and soft indie elements into the album. With the variety of tracks on this record, the duo beautifully weaves together a distinct and unique album that shows off Penny & Sparrow’s large scope and creative ability.
Songs like “Alphabet,” “Cheers to Good Friends,” and “Jeopardy” are standouts that contain slower melodies and melancholic harmonies, noticeably contrasting songs like “Even-Keeled,” “Arm Candy,” and “Breakdown,” which tend to have more upbeat tunes. The range this album reaches makes every song contain a uniqueness that keeps listeners engaged, as every song is an experience much different from the last.
Using this distinctness to their advantage, Penny & Sparrow leave fans with a prominent hit in the album, “Mattering Ram,” a song that embraces the chaos of diverse experience, much like the album title “Lefty” itself. The track is composed of 15 short stories made by the artists, yet through this variation, “Mattering Ram” is able to really get through to the listener with its smooth beat and even smoother voices perfectly telling each story with little to no confusion.
As good as this album is, some tracks fell flat of their compositional aim, specifically those where Penny & Sparrow collab with other artists. Songs like “Dogs of War” with JOSEPH, “O-Ren Ishii” with David Michael Wyatt, and “Ketamine” with Tobe Nwigwe fail to fully present the talents of all the artists involved. Nothing specifically can be pinpointed out of these songs to blame for their shortcoming, but the collabs seemed to limit each artist from showing their full talents by losing the uniqueness each artist brings to the table by seating them in a compromised middle.
From a narrative perspective, the transitions between songs prove to be a bit too irregular due to the album lacking much of a throughline or dominant mood. However, when taken separately, each song is enriched with individuality, which makes the inconsistency of tone irrelevant to the listener who will likely find a flavor somewhere that they like.
Despite some small misfires, Penny & Sparrow strongly end the record with “Crawling Out,” a song that parades the duo’s vocal chops, something that many other songs didn’t achieve as clearly. With that finishing touch, Penny & Sparrow create a record that will go down as one of the best in their discography due to their firm show of raw talent, cutting emotion, and extraordinary creative abilities.
The album is available for streaming on services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube Music.
