When you’ve followed an artist long enough, you can’t help feeling a sense of pride with each album release. I’ve been a fan of Amina Shareef Ali for almost ten years and it’s a thrill to see (or, I guess, hear) how she’s blossomed on her latest, In The Dark (Awake Of Course), Vol. 2. A follow-up to her 2021 album, Vol. 2 is more expansive, even more gut-wrenching, but also confidently, authentically, Amina.
Ali borrows from many decades of rock and country across the album, though her confessional folk roots like at the core of each song. “Tinder” is a romantic rave-up, Ali centering herself as a swaggering punk rocker in this bittersweet longing for a lover who’s good.
“Is Love a Bird?” contrasts sharply, one of Ali’s more experimental compositions to date. As Ali ponders the nature of love’s vagaries, trilling flutes build into an ominous cacophony, drowning her thoughts amidst a seemingly meaningless chaos of existential emptiness.
Ali grapples with her transition in two different ways, both arresting. “Twin” taps into heavy metal influences as Ali grapples with the coexistence of her former self in the minds of her loved ones — and herself. A person who is her, but is not, who knows her intimately, but is hated, a person whom her loved ones may mourn openly or secretly, but one Ali would be glad to be rid of, though that person may still live inside of her. There are no easy answers here, though the honky-tonk “Farewell to Man” offers a sweeter farewell.
These are all big, heavy things — enough to keep anyone up at night for sure. Ali isn’t here to offer the way through; she’s just allowing us to join her on the journey for a while.