Mood Valiant

The title of Hiatus Kaiyote's third LP has dual meaning. It's a nod to frontperson Nai Palm's mother, who would tip-off her mood by driving either a white (positive) or black (negative) Valiant Safari wagon. Mood Valiant also applies directly to Palm, who in 2018 was diagnosed with breast cancer -- what her mother died from -- and underwent life-saving surgery. At the time, the band were in the middle of making what became Mood Valiant, but Palm was given an all-clear, enabling her to record the album's vocals, by the end of 2019. (She also had to re-learn guitar.) In a real way, the title is also symbolic of the whole band, who were subsequently hamstrung again by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although all this could have resulted in Hiatus Kaiyote's wildest and most triumphant material, Mood Valiant is intimate and romantic more than anything else. Palm more often applies her nature and science references to loved-up fantasies. In "Chivalry Is Not Dead," after likening herself to a series of amorous creatures, she goes into overdrive with "Electrons in the air on fire, lightning kissing metal/Whisper to the tiny hairs, battery on my tongue." Palm gets straight to the point elsewhere, like in the frictional percussion masterstroke "Rose Water," where "All of my heart, it wants to hold you" shoots forth. The band's playing is as taut as ever, their abrupt changes in key and tempo, and pattering and jittery polyrhythms, further intensifying Palm's aflutter poetry. They whip up a tempestuous racket for "All the Words We Don't Say," containing Palm's most time-seizing performance. The kinks are flattened just enough for "Get Sun," a rolling and strutting number befitting early-'70s Marvin Gaye with an arrangement from elusive Brazilian wiz Arthur Verocai. Just as crucially, "Stone or Lavender" is left to just strings and piano framing Palm's reassurance that "We will get over, only if we wanna." The surface of the whole set sounds slightly scuffed, which has a way of making the material seem a little weathered and even more personal. That peaks with Palm's aching rasp on the chorus of "Red Room," a self-preservation soul ballad on the level of Georgia Anne Muldrow's "Roses." It's as if the singer is scratching an itch on the soul of the listener. ~ Andy Kellman