On Tender Forever's first album, 2005's The Soft and the Hardcore, the name of the game was lightness. Nearly every song was like the first word in singer-songwriter Melanie Valera's stage name: tender. The minimalist indie pop tunes had the overall effect of a glimpse into a romantic 16-year-old girl's diary. Wider was sassier, a 2007 collection of songs that had some rumination mixed in with the general blueberry-picking ambiance.
On her third release, No Snare, Valera nods at past albums, but brings an overall different mood. "The Snare That's Gone" trades breezy lyrics about making out for heavier ones that compare her heart to a battered snare drum. "Only The Sounds You Make" brings to mind, of all people, Atlanta rapper T.I. with its dark, string-backed production. And like T.I., when you stop dancing around like an idiot, you realize how depressing the lyrics are. It's obvious she's not in the most chipper of moods when she sings "I asked myself is it still worth the fight / when the land is blood and the people lie," on No Snare's final track.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2010.