Romance and reverie have always been at the heart of Amber Bain’s music. The British singer-songwriter’s moniker, the Japanese House, calls back to the blissful childhood memories of her parents’ vacation home, which was furnished to resemble a Japanese tea house, and the sun-washed imagery of her music captures that spirit. Bain sings wistfully of complicated relationships, lending her stories of queer love a dreamlike quality.
On her 2019 debut, Good at Falling, Bain luxuriated in melodrama, her expressive contralto taking center stage atop reverb-heavy ambient pop. Initially, the musician’s sophomore effort, In the End It Always Does, seems to follow suit, with a summery ambience, songs about emotional distance, and her unmistakable voice. As the album unfolds, though, her approach feels like it’s been flipped, with vocal hooks taking a backseat to highly textured folktronica instrumentation and a more impressionistic rendering of desire.
This shift in style works well on the jaunty “Touching Yourself,” whose fragmented, repetitive lyrics are just vivid enough to allow the listener to piece together a narrative while preserving a sense of ambivalence: “I had to go into the other room/She told me something, and I had to go and sit by myself.” The similarly bouncy “Boyhood” fleshes out the album’s textures with intertwining acoustic guitar and electronic clicks that contrast sharply with the soft-focus plushness of much of Good at Falling without sacrificing atmosphere.
Elsewhere, “Over There” has all the trappings of a ’90s slow jam, from starry keys to gentle cymbals. The song also cleverly deploys the album’s motif of repetition and lyrics that conjure images of fresh wounds: “It’s almost like you lived here/It’s like you almost lived here.” The track’s unexpected throwback production is uncharacteristic of In the End It Always Does in its style, as well as in how it plays up the depth of Bain’s yearning.
The rest of In the End It Always Does is comparably mild and forlorn, caught between heartbreak and healing. “Sunshine Baby,” which features guest vocals from Bain’s labelmate, the 1975’s Matty Healy, languidly gestures toward lost love—“I miss the feeling that you get when someone fits just like a glove”—but serves a sweet slice of soft rock to sway to. Ultimately, the track offers the same pleasures as the album as a whole: the beauty and depth of Bain’s voice, increasingly multi-textured instrumentation, and reminiscence on the fleeting joy of love.
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