Lily & Madeleine – Keep It Together

Lily & Madeleine sang 'complacency is the currency/good enough is enough for me' on their 2014 release Fumes. And while their output at such a young age (18 and 21 respectively) is admirable, it feels as if the Indiana duo’s sound is at odds with their talents and motives.

Keep It Together draws heavily on themes of identity, social anxiety and the pressures of growing up. Betraying the angst such travails imply, lines like: 'At night I lie awake, I want you to tell me now… I’m sick of losing sleep' (as found on the track Not Gonna) are delivered with the same gossamer-like vocal harmonies of yore. 

Dry and lacklustre instrumentation does nothing to compensate for an unshakable one-dimensionality. There are flickers of great Americana songwriting – closing track Nothing is evocative and mesmerising – but Keep It Together is otherwise just too slick and clinical to truly convince.