Album Review: Victoria Canal - 'Slowly, It Dawns'
Victoria Canal’s ‘Slowly, It Dawns’ is a debut album years in the making, but the graft pays off with a dazzling set of self-empowerment pop gems.
The road here was not always pretty, and more convoluted than the German-born, Spanish-American artist, singer, songwriter, actor and manifester’s story sounds. The finished product was made over three years and recorded in London and LA – with Victoria recently posting support on social media for those affected by the ongoing wildfires in the latter. The final product is universal, effortless and refined, reflecting life in your twenties, a time that is usually anything but.
The first half of the album is a pop girl brimming with creativity, beginning with last summer’s single ‘June Baby’. The vulnerability is visibly present in a sunshiny track written with The 1975’s Ross MacDonald, with fellow band member George Daniel on co-production. Victoria sings: “You saw me naked, totally freaking out. Afraid to say it, I think I love you now.” When she repeats the line “I am falling apart, I am falling apart,” it morphs into an anthemic juggernaut.
The glorious “some kind of euphoria” continues with ‘Talk’, about an inconvenient crush over a driving vibe. It has all the hallmarks of another summer smash with her delivery: “We don’t need to talk about it, we don’t need to talk at all.”
‘California Sober’ is big and bold, dripping with confidence and a little Latin sweat. It’s where VC, raised for most of her life in Spain, lets that side in after years admiring Anglo-American acts. Written with Låpsley, the feeling of romance is underpinned by exotic sounds and queer liberation. She sings: “Baby beg for it, lay in it, so close that you can taste it. Be my guest, be my guest” with more beauty than beast. It is crying out for dancing and hot as hell all-night vibing.
‘Cake’ has dramatic undertones and cinematic desperation. There’s a sense of escapism despite strong almost-dystopian electronics, all wrapped up in three minutes. The key line - “Fuck the cake! Let’s go straight to the vodka. We don’t ever have to think about the cracks in the machine” – sums up some of the contradictions at the heart of the album, and the world. Meanwhile, ‘15%’, about the yin and yang of life, gives the album its title. “Slowly, it dawns, I’m a pain in the ass. Is everyone happy I’m leaving?” Victoria seeks reassurance despite ongoing doubt in a delicate and sombre track. There is also another nod to her mixed heritage, briefly flitting between tongues: “Depende¿ De que depende? It depends on you. It depends on me.”
Side A ends with ‘Vauxhall’ - not the area in south London, but the thought of trading her music dreams for the suburbs with an overly assertive man in a naff car: “I could use your confidence, and your shitty Vauxhall.” It has full-blown popstar energy with another Bond-esque sound, and rounding off by singing “I wish I had a choice”.
The second half shows a more “self-aware” Victoria Canal in another, slightly less chaotic world. ‘How Can I Be A Person?’ is 165 seconds of calm glory, drifting pleasantly on the idea of recollection with few words, before the meditative sound of Totally Fucking Fine’, which fuses an explicit title with a mellow centre. The bracing and honest piano ballad was delivered in one go, in which she asks: “What good is a holiday if you’re already bored?” It is the track where the girl born without a lower arm most talks about the concept of the body, repeating “that body’s not mine” before declaring the title line again. It has a soft ending, before coming back for a final line of heart-wrenching vocals.
In ‘Hollow’, Victoria questions: “How did I end up here? Guarded and insincere, walking on tippy toes. Nobody knows.” She fears being fake, but the result is 115% real: “There’s no morning glory, no bible or moral of the story to follow. Beneath it all, we are hollow.” In ‘Barely’, VC delivers the lyric “We’re all solar systems, we’re so fucking small. Centres of existence, barely here at all” with beauty and calm, despite the words having a punk energy which a different band would blister through in seconds. It is one of the myriad ways that Victoria changes and subverts ideas, capable of doing things in splendid and unusual ways.
The final songs are a twinset from previous EPs. Coldplay’s Chris Martin, a mentor to Victoria and a key figure in getting her signed to the band’s label Parlophone, described ‘Black Swan’ as “one of the best songs ever written”. It also won the Ivor Novello Best Song Musically and Lyrically last year. In it, she sings: “Mama, turn me blonde, take my final form. Black swan, black swan”. Meanwhile ‘swan song’ is stylishly crafted, as Victoria ends by contemplating: “Who knows how long we’ve got? As long as I am breathing, I know it’s not too late to love.” It is a sentiment that runs throughout every part of ‘Slowly, It Dawns’.
In a crowded field of female singer-songwriters, Victoria Canal is unique in many ways. The vulnerable and introspective piano art is sometimes at odds with the bravado of Side A, but it is the feeling of being human. She won’t be defined by her limb difference, instead turning to universality which is in the strong songwriting and beautiful harmonies found on this album. Victoria has finally found clarity as her own artist – sometimes wholesome, sometimes sexy, and always showing there’s unlimited potential in her career.
‘Slowly, It Dawns’ is an impressive benchmark jammed with well-executed songs and a strong pop performance. For a woman who begins her album singing “I am falling apart, I am falling apart”, it’s all come together. It’s taken a while, but this is Victoria Canal’s moment.
Words by Samuel Draper
