Now, Now returns from a six-year break to offer an incredibly textured, ethereal and personal album of r&b-infused emo-pop. It’s a sonic journey and personal meditation on the drastic dualities of love, complete with captivating religious symbolism and breathtaking production.

With lovelorn drumkit distortions and meditative aquatic dissolutions, Saved constructs for itself an aesthetic somewhere between neon desert and synthetic rainstorm.

When lead single “SGL” was first released last summer, it acted as a first offering post-trio. Now, Now is short a guitarist since their 2012 release—the [now] duo, made of Cacie Dalager (vocals, guitar, keyboard) and Bradley Hale (drums, backing vocals), began to signal a shift from emo indie-rock to confident indie-pop.

The fresh direction gave Dalager’s vocals new strength, the duo seemingly freer than ever—and the experimentations clearly pay off as the album unfolds itself. Vocals aren’t just sung, but played with—from the hooks in “MJ” to the atmospheric instrumentations in “Holy Water.”

“SGL” opens Saved with hopeful sunshine and strummed melodies, Dalager chronicling a shotgun lover archetype—a love that hits hard and spreads out, passionate and explosive. Her lover is already in a relationship, but they’re both in love with each other—and hurting as a result. Desire is exploding into her life, manifesting itself in sleep and sadness. Though the circumstance may be complex, the subject matter is a strange kind of hopeful. Maybe they’re better off trading the friendship for more love in the name of shotgun-riding road trips—a perfect scenario for the song’s own sonics.

Michael Jackson is one of Dalager’s greatest inspirations. In the shadows of a freshly fated relationship, she sings to him on the thumping standout “MJ:”

I know I'm not the only one who listened to ya
Billie Jean, baby please, he's a criminal
Maybe if I was young, unpredictable
He's got her heart and I

She’s confused as to why it ended—her lover “could've been an angel,” but “left all her demons on my front step.” She wants it back, regardless of the pain she deems unnecessary, and sings so repeatedly with as much removed devastation. On a later track, “Knowme,” she repeats the line “could’ve been [so] easy,” but with more hindsight and less heartbreak. Slow-ticking drum beats dance around the mystified vocal, slowly opening up from the darker distortions in the beginning to a sacred semblance of light at the song’s finish.

“AZ,” another abbreviated anthem appearing in the pre-release press for Saved, sounds like desert rock shoved through a synthesizer. It’s a song hovering with the haze of a hot desert day, reflecting on ghosts at the foot of beds and reminiscing “Back to the summer we all drove out to Arizona,” possibly in search of an origin from the mirage. It’s an introduction to imagery explored on later tracks, from spiritual allusion (“Holy Water”) to invisible presence (“Window”).

Now, Now strike liquid gold with Saved’s sixth track, “Holy Water.” The production is ethereal, synth runs rippling like water droplets against the smooth swirls of Dalager’s vocals. A crisp drum kit kicks in before the first 50 seconds, mistily building to a rousing chorus of

You touch me like an angel
But you kiss me like a sinner
Got me dying for a miracle
Baby step into the holy water

with dreamy progression in production. Slow-ticking beats dance around the mystified vocal, slowly opening up from the darker distortions in the beginning to a sacred semblance of light at the song’s finish. It’s a perfect sonic pairing to the religious symbolism—Dalager’s relationship is likened to both golden, angelic highs and painful, darkened lows.

Although the love is enthralling, she likens it to being tied to an anchor, holding her breath as she finds solace in the sinking. The bridge finds itself spilling over the song’s crux with, “How could I stop when I know what it feels like / Yeah, I found myself so alive in your holy light.” It’s as rousing as it is devastating—and it’s beautiful.

The pace picks right up with the playful beats of “Yours,” a single with a wavy chorus tinged in neon blues. “If I had my way, I would be yours / You say my name, I had no choice,” the chorus muses. It’s another effervescent declaration of infatuation.

Album namesake “Saved” opens with anamorphic vocals, echoing like a fatal cry somewhere between “oh my God” and “why to me.” The first verse details a honeymoon fixation, gliding between hands through hair and sultry stares. A familiar fixation seems to be unfolding before a stripped-down, epiphanic chorus breaks:

A holy martyr, you're a saint

You let my love go to waste

You left me fucked up, baby, in a fucked up place

Oh my God, I'm saved

There’s a slight shiver in the “Oh my” before the opening distortion enters again, signaling a perspective progression on the relationship. Dalager has seen the light—this relationship brings nothing but pain, and only through her realization is she saved. The strength is tangible in the closing bridge of “If you're feeling sorry, I don't wanna know / If you think about me, baby, then don't.”

The breadth of Now, Now is only explored and strengthened between the following tracks. “Set It Free” calls back to the duo’s earlier days of live drum and layered guitar. “Knowme” revisits the same relationship woes of “SGL,” but trades desert drums for pulsing punches, wrapping the sonics in a synth-heavy hook for the ages. Hazy, vaporized drum tracks permeate “Drive,” a track describing once again the feelings tied so deeply with a summer ride. “I’ll just keep driving until I find myself a new horizon,” she sings. By the time the track finishes, Now, Now has personally driven us through all the stages of emotional driving—exuberant radio blaring, rain-pattered neon emotion and windows-down winsomeness.

Album closer, “P0WDER” is an emotional and sonical synthesis of Saved. Light, ghostly vocals breathe life to a drum-pat beat, electric beams dancing joyously around sharpened guitar strums. Although the production leaps with positivity, Dalager starts to reveal a reliance with the relationship. The subtle elasticity on the first half of “P0WDER” take the focus away from the tiny, pulsing cracks in the glass. Just as the song reaches peak radiance, a final-stretch deconstruction blares its way in with dramatic fashion. Only when the song title appears in the outro does the reality of duality begin to completely clobber the playful instrumentations.

Crush me up into a powder

Take me away like the wind

Sinking in deeper each hour

This place without you is sin

The deep, blaring bass serves as the eye of a storm only Now, Now can manage to create. Vocals shriek and boom in resound, and you can practically see lightning in the distance as the rain comes down again. With a mere minute left, the echoing twists break down into a final statement of duality.

The relationships, both experienced and imagined, glitter in glorious light with rumblings of darkness threatening it from beneath. Dalager’s loves are intense, passionate, sunny and beautiful.

But, like the wariness that slowly reveals itself in the progression of the closing track, love can also be dangerous. It’s this volatile state that permeates Saved, and the album shines brightest when it’s examined closest. There are absolutely no skips on its 12 tracks, a rare feat for any artist, much less ones boldly veering into new territory. Now, Now may be going into new directions, but they’re undeniably reaching full form.

Saved is out now. Trans Records / LAB Records.

Photo 2: Original by Sam San Román / backing edit Tanner Vargas

'Saved' and the Liberation of Now, Now