Grace Potter
Midnight
HOLLYWOOD
4/10
“Forgive me if I’m not myself tonight,” Grace Potter first coos on “Hot to the Touch,” warning listeners that Midnight—her aggressive solo debut after shedding The Nocturnals—shows a brand-new side of the Vermont native. OK, Potter knows who she isn’t, but does she know who she is?
Instead of answers, we are treated to more drums, synths, and shimmery electronics amped up to eleven—shrinking an Olympian voice that sounds far better with less fanfare. Still, the ecstasy-stained bombast of “Delirious” is admirable for Potter’s wild abandon. Soulful closer “Let You Go” is a sly, sonic oasis, and with the back-porch stomp “Empty Heart,” she sounds committed and feisty, her voice whiskey hoarse and still fighting. Potter cites genre-hoppers Bowie and Dylan as reasons that the patchwork-pop of Midnight is a left turn from 2012’s The Lion The Beast The Beat. Unfortunately, Midnight feels less like when Dylan went electric and more like that time he did a lingerie commercial.
