Critically acclaimed jazz-pop singer-songwriter Laufey released her third studio album “A Matter Of Time” August 22. Fans hurriedly awaited for clocks to strike midnight, after singles such as “Tough Luck” debuted the day of the album’s announcement, “Silver Lining” notably appearing in the “Love Island” finale and “Lover Girl” and “Snow White” hinting at the final discography’s ethereal concept.
The album centers around the feeling of living life: unable to escape the inevitable consequences of time. Synchronized with whimsical, fairy-tale allusions, Laufey portrays herself as an anxious Cinderella, depicting her mercurial thoughts and insecurities. She describes the album as an artistically liberated journey of self-discovery, digging into the deepest parts of her soul, uncovering her vulnerabilities to beautifully detail the truth of her raw, and sometimes ugly, emotions. Tugging at listeners’ heartstrings, Laufey gracefully narrates relatable experiences of love alongside angelically ethereal instrumentation — a Laufey signature since her 2022 debut album “Everything I Know About Love.”
“The feelings of self-sabotage and every other raw feeling presented in the album resonate with me more than I think any other song has before. She put herself in the spotlight for us, showing how she actually feels. That mixed with the gorgeous instrumental makes the album one of the best jazz-pop albums I’ve ever heard,” magnet sophomore Ryatt Bricolo said.
When listened to chronologically, all 14 songs unravel the theme of how love consumes every thought, comparable to spiraling into madness. The album starts off with “Clockwork,” an upbeat song that sets the scene of living in fear of destiny. The lyrics recount the rabbit hole descent of delusion Laufey falls into when she develops a crush on a friend, yet remains self-aware of the repercussions and irrationality of it. In “Lover Girl,” the maniac-like descent is depicted by a gradually quickening tempo, before returning to a normal speed in a period of lucidity. Similarly, in the final track, “Sabotage” showcases deeply introspective lyrics and orchestra harmonies, juxtaposed with abrupt, short bursts of erratic music, emerging analogous to horror jumpscares.
“This album basically was a story of falling in love and breaking up, feeling insecure, hearing about the new girl wishing it was you and a rollercoaster of emotions that comes with that. I went through that, and Laufey conveyed my feelings perfectly, with so much emotion and grace. Her songs have blown up in the past couple years [as] she’s been giving her all in each album. Laufey, identifying her music as jazz, gives the genre more recognition. It definitely gives me more reasons to listen to jazz,” junior Kayla Daniel said.
With approachable, modernized lyrics, Laufey bridges the gap between the older generations’ love for classical and jazz music and younger listeners. Her music has resurrected the dying Jazz genre by reintroducing the syncopated beats with colloquial slang. She skillfully contextualizes teenage enigmatic emotions, such as in “Magnolia,” written as a love letter with hints of jealousy-driven adoration to girls who remain unaware of their own beauty. For example, in the Grammy-winning album, “Bewitched,” Laufey receives a love letter from a new crush.
In an interview, Laufey explains how loneliness of the industry, but working with her identical twin sister, Junia, prevents her from falling into solitude. From producing album covers to recording background violin melodies, Junia serves as the mastermind behind Laufey’s iconic romantic visuals.
“A Matter Of Time” alludes to Laufey as imaginary storybook princesses, Cinderella and Snow White, whose mellow voices enchant nature and position themselves in pop-culture entertainment history. In parallel, the album crowns her into a well-deserved “Castle in Hollywood,” with her real-life capability of breathing life into a whimsical world into songs that frame hard-to-describe emotions into poetry.
The Chant’s rating: A+
