The Morning After

Album Review

A photo of a dazed Barbie doll with frazzled hair fronts Pal Shazar's The Morning After. Barbie, it seems, has had quite a night, and she's lost a bit of her trademark good looks in the rays of the morning light. This out-of-kilter image prepares the way for Shazar's vision of post-millennium life as a perpetual morning after, with individuals trapped in the aftermath of unhappy lives. "Anger," for instance, starts with the narrator noting that she "gave up the blue pills," though she is clearly having a difficult time coping without them. As unhappy as this all sounds, Shazar delivers these unhappy laments in a pleasant voice against a pop-laced background, blunting the lyrical blow. Nonetheless, songs like "How Could You" are fairly unrelenting, because they refuse to look away from the absurdity of it all. Other songs, like "Splendor in the Grass," are less fully realized, and the vocals more uncertain. Although the music on The Morning After is quite likable, the listener, after hearing these odes to how crappy life is, will probably feel like the Barbie on the cover. Nonetheless, Shazar's songs will probably match the mood of a number of folks who have to deal with the morning after of dead-end jobs and relationships day after day. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide