Reina Del Cid The Cooling CD

2018 release. Faced with the question of influences, Reina Del Cid cites literary rather than musical heroes. She commands a flexibility of language reminiscent less of Regina Spektor or Ingrid Michaelson, artists she is often compared to, but more of Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath. Yet there is a Newtonian balance of forces in Reina del Cid's band: for every droll phrase or inventive image pushing the music toward the realm of the cerebral, there is a corresponding musical contribution from the richly talented Toni Lindgren. The young guitarist is adept at orchestrating and fleshing out the skeletons of del Cid's songs into an engaging brand of pop rock, equal parts stratified and accessible. These lyrical and musical forces have never combined more compellingly than in the band's sophomore album, The Cooling. Recorded at the historic Pachyderm studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, The Cooling showcases the dark side to Reina del Cid. From the frenetic palimpsest of Lindgren's tapping guitar in the opening track to the stripped down solo acoustic "Morse Code," the terrain of The Cooling is anything but uniform, and yet it holds up as a cohesive work of discovery, maturation, and growth for the songwriter and her band.

1. Sweet Annie 2. This One's Gonna Hurt 3. The Fall 4. Where the Sun Always Shines 5. Morse Code 6. Mice and Men 7. Giving Up 8. Xanadu 9. The Cooling 10. Death Cap