At times, a captivating and enchanting debut. Unfortunately, monotonous pretty and delicate tones throughout lead to a slightly sickly sweet aftertaste.
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At just 15 years of age Flo Morrissey wrote ‘Show Me’, the opening track to her debut album Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful, released five years later. Within the space of those years, Morrissey had shared a host of covers and demos to her fans leading to the most important step in her musical career – her discovery by Daniel Glass and the consequent signing to his record label Glassnote. The record that made this happen was ‘If You Can’t Love This All Goes Away’ with its accompanying video showing Morrissey swimming underwater, filmed by her younger sister with an effectively amateur eye; both the tone of the song and the visuals reminiscent of Lana del Rey’s ‘Video Games’.
The album begins with a memorable first trio of songs ‘Show Me’, ‘Pages of Gold’ and ‘If You Can’t Love This All Goes Away’ setting the record up with Morrissey’s delicate vocals, soft layers and heartfelt lyrics. A host of female artists come to mind whilst listening to these album openers: the Söderberg sisters of First Aid Kit with their wonderful folky harmonies, Lana del Rey with her crooning, self-deprecating tones and Kate Bush’s chilling vocal range and melodies. Morrissey combines a range of these artistic talents to create an atmospheric and captivating first few tracks that also set up and accompany the record’s theme of a troubled and sad young woman, aching from the journey from childhood to adulthood as portrayed on ‘Show Me’ where Morrissey pleads “show me that I’ll become something that is parallel to when I was young”.
The album’s themes continue along these veins as Morrissey sings of love, heartache and pain. She is youthful but has recorded an album that thrives in maturity, experience and a depth that goes beyond her young years. However, the album soon loses its charm as the record becomes too repetitive where the tracks unfortunately begin to merge as one. Melodies become overly familiar and musical arrangements begin to overshadow Morrissey’s extreme vocal talent.
Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful had the potential to become a timeless coming-of-age record oozing with celestial vocals, some mature and focused songwriting and complimentary instrumental arrangements. Unfortunately, Morrissey’s debut, as a whole, becomes slightly sickly sweet and repetitive. However, although lacking clear memorable hooks, Morrissey has created a delicate, atmospheric and, at times, captivating debut record as illustrated with album highlights ‘Show Me’, ‘Pages of Gold’ and the track that got her to where she is today, ‘If You Can’t Love This All Goes Away’.
Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful is out now via Glassnote Records.
