.Cate Kileva returns with a full-length album that not only spans what seems like several chapters in her life but also spans this beautiful and expansive set of tonalities that you end up getting engulfed in.
The How You Love Is How You Die album doesn't really seem to hold much back in the way of being open and emotionally up front and I think that's because Cate really gives a piece of herself with each different song on this record but, there's also this interconnective factor between them which makes it feel almost like a concept record.
When I say that, I don't mean your standard concept album type of approach. I mean, that again, she plays these songs out as if they were chapters in a book and they go in a certain order, so you read this book and it's about her.
Some of the songs feel so personal that you feel like they could have served as the soundtrack for certain chapters in your life which is incredible because it's something that makes you feel connected to a lot of the music.
Her ability to be open lyrically and just get these inner thoughts out is incredible because she articulates them in such a way that not only do you connect with them, but you relate to them, and understand them, and you're being told certain kinds of stories.
Some of them let you paint vivid pictures in your head while others actually may cause memories of your own to pop into your brain.
You can't really get more connective than that.
Musically, this album is unreal because these songs range from a very vast and dream-like pop approach to a more edgy and alternative underbelly and sometimes she combines both of those elements in one song so you're getting so much personality and a great blend of textural approaches that the whole record serves as an escape.
If you listen to this album from beginning to end, then you get pulled away from wherever you are and whatever you're doing, and you get put into this other realm for a little while.
You are thrown into this personal and softly edgy pop realm that feels like a waking dream and this is a sensation that really grabs you.
By the time the album is over you have to reacclimate yourself back to reality again and this is something you don't get often so for me, this record was incredibly refreshing and a lot of ways.
All of the tracks are so personal feeling. They describe love, loss, heartbreak, and aftermath. There is a lot that the album encompasses emotionally and that's why it feels as big as it does.
Her vocal approach is always gorgeous. So passionate and has soul but not in the way you would picture it. It's a different kind of soulfulness. It's just authentic. You know that these songs came from real places because of how she sings them.
This is what I mean when I say the songs have personality. After listening to the record you feel like you know her more. I feel like artists should really be doing that. They should be letting so much out that you connect with them and you feel like you know them as a person better.
This album was very freeing and impactful, cinematic, vast, intense, and oozing with realness.
I feel like this was a big one for Cate to the point where it was probably cathartic for her to release the entire thing.
There is just a lot she needed to get off of her chest and this is the way she knew how to do it so she did.
The beautiful part about that is that for people that are listening to the record, they will be able to relate to it and certain songs may let someone in particular situations feel like they're not alone and that is something that's important because Cate shares that emotion with everybody on this record.
A lot of people don't know how to do that. People don't exactly share their emotions or Express them because a lot of people don't know how to.
Cate does an amazing job of articulating that into words and music so that people can soak them in how they want to but for some, they will feel things from them and we need music in the world that makes you think it makes you feel.
This was a gorgeous record from an artist that I have been excited about for a while and I'm so glad to hear this full album finally release because it's better than I would have imagined.
That's for real. But don't just take my word for it, please do listen to this record and do it with headphones.
There's so much going on that you really can float alongside this record if you listen with headphones.
Enjoy this one and again, listen to the whole thing through because it's worth it.
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