Faye Webster - Underdressed At the Symphony

Underdressed at the Symphony is a fitting title for an album that finds Faye Webster slowly trading her initial country-rock inclinations for a sumptuous chamber pop: underneath her sophisticated trappings, she remains a slacker whose presence isn't ostentatious but is certainly felt. Not so much a shift in direction as an idiosyncratic evolution from the soft-focus shimmer of I Know I'm Funny Haha, the 2021 album that gained enough buzz to cross the radar of former President Barack Obama (he chose "Better Distractions" as one of his picks to click for 2020), Underdressed at the Symphony intensifies the lush, languid undertones lurking within her music. Working with her regular co-producer Drew Vandenberg, Webster emphasizes presentation and execution over composition or construction, letting her backing band and tight group of collaborators breathe along with her sighing melodies. Her quivering, tentative voice cuts against the opulence of the arrangements, particularly when it's run