Album Review: ‘In Limerence’ by Jacob Alon

The album opens with ‘Glimmer’, an instrumental introduction to Alon’s fairytale world. The sound of a tape inserted into the player can be heard right at the start. Acoustic guitars are being strummed while several voices sound in the background. The short track flows perfectly into ‘Of Amber’, one of many unreleased songs that have only been performed at their live shows. Like most of Alon’s music, it’s a dreamlike track in which they sing about a girl who is only trying to protect herself from the world. Literally, the song talks about protecting “ancient matter in an amber inclusion”. The track, which is quite unconventionally structured, only has one ‘chorus’, in which Alon’s high-pitched vocals sing about Amber reaching the stars. The height of the notes matches the metaphorical height of her up in the sky, and the drum-and-guitar-based track ends in a high energy climax before fading out into the next song. 

The third song on the album is the raw and haunting ‘Don’t Fall Asleep’, which was released as a single earlier this year. In the song’s first verse, Alon sings about a person named Matthew who died and looks upon his own dead body. Alon wrote the song about their cousin, who in real life drowned as a result of taking too much laughing gas. While Alon never knew their cousin, they heard many stories of their cousin and therefore “always had a kind of fictional relationship [with] him”. In the song’s third verse, Alon makes use of this fictional perspective to write about Matthew imagining the things he could have lived for if only he had the chance, like seeing his son be born. ‘Don’t Fall Asleep’ is a dark but beautiful song of a life lost too soon.

More family relationships are discussed in the acoustic-guitar-track ‘I Couldn’t Feed Her’. While the direct meaning of the song stays hidden at first listen, it seems to talk about a somewhat broken relationship between a mother and her child. In this folksy song, Alon sings about a mother who cannot feed her child because her milk has run dry. In the third verse, Alon sings “mama will make you forget you’re hers” and “see, you’re learning the power of letting things go”. In this painful track, Alon discusses a love lost between mother and child. The pain of growing is a common theme on this  album and continues over to the next track ‘Confession’. In this song, the raw hurt in Alon’s voice can be heard as they sing about losing their best friend as a result of being queer. Alon wrote this song about confessing their love to someone and the shame that came with it as a queer person. “As queer people, we are always coming out” It feels as though Alon is attempting to shed the shame surrounding that with this song. They  wrote it when they felt at their lowest, but also want their listeners to know that despite the pain, there will be joy at the end. Being queer is beautiful and nothing to ever be ashamed of. 

The album continues with ‘Elijah’ and ‘Liquid Gold 25’. While ‘Elijah’ is again a mostly acoustic-guitar-based track, ‘Liquid Gold 25’ opens with haunting drums that continue throughout the entire track as the guitar is being strummed as well. Both tracks are quite dark. In the former, Alon sings about a person named Elijah who might have anger issues or some other form of darkness inside of them. Alon mentioned how there is “evil in his eyes” and that he could “open the gates to hell”. The very high-pitched final notes of the song are screeching and soul-stirring, making Alon sound desperate as they are telling Elijah’s story. In ‘Liquid Gold 25’, Alon tells a more personal story about the vicious cycles one can find themselves in and the toxic coping mechanisms that come with it. The lyrics are self-depracting as Alon sings how “covered in spit, you submit to feel closer to anything that keeps love alive”; in no way is this a healthy relationship. 

 ‘August Moon’, combines the aforementioned screeching with Alon’s most personal story. The song is a track to a dear friend of his and contains some of the best lyrics, making nods to mythology that perfectly fit the fantastical world they have immersed the listener in.In the bridge, while the acoustic guitar keeps playing, wind instruments and drums take over. “I screamed till their ears bled,” Alon sings, “It went like ‘ah-ooh”, and they repeat this sound over and over again till the song dies out. 

The album then goes into an entirely different direction with the almost five-minute-long ‘Home Tapes’, a song that includes no lyrics. It opens with the sounds of the wind blowing before the beloved acoustic guitar and piano join in. Multiple home tapes are playing in the background and the voices of Jacob and their family can be heard in the back. While the song starts off softly, it takes a darker turn after the first three minutes. Jacob’s current voice can be heard saying “close your eyes” as the strumming of the guitar becomes broken before dying out completely. It gives the song a creepy feel, as if maybe growing up was not always sunshine and rainbows, but also hard and sad. The final part of the song has a sorrowful undertone as the tapes continue to play. The song fades out with an audible sigh and flows perfectly into ‘Zathura’, another song about growing up and one that appears to talk about a chicken, according to Alon’s social media. 

Alon’s debut album ends with ‘Fairy in a Bottle’, an obsessive love song about keeping your loved one trapped in your idea of them, never-changing. Whereas the intimate ‘Fairy in a Bottle’ is another acoustic-guitar track where Alon’s vulnerable vocals take center stage, ‘Sertraline’ is synth-based and includes less vocalizing. They stand as the longest and shortest songs on the album and perfectly fit with the themes discussed so far. These final songs perfectly capture the meaning of being “in limerence” – a state of obsession based on romantic feelings for someone, which often comes with intrusive and melancholic thoughts. ‘Fairy in a Bottle’ is the song where the listener can hear how Alon is experiencing limerence, whereas ‘Sertraline’(yes the antidepressant) describes the one solution Alon has found for dragging themselves out of moments of deep despair. 

Especially considering the rise of the alt-right, queer stories need to be heard and this album sure does its part in that. At the same time, even listeners who may not be queer can relate to many stories Alon has told throughout. Themes of loss, depression, and drug abuse are, unfortunately, part of our reality. For those who may relate, Alon’s album gives a dream-like comfort that sometimes takes a turn into nightmare territory, but even in the dark, comfort can be found. The singer-songwriter will be going on tour with Kae Tempest throughout the UK and Europe later this year, so make sure to go see them live – these lyrics have to be heard – and felt- live.