Album Review: Alex Izenberg - Harlequin

2016 has been pretty bleak; sub-standard super hero movies, multiple musician deaths, worrying Philippines and US election outcomes, Brexit, France, Turkey etc, etc…

It's marginally comforting then to have a peaceful, naive, distraction such as Harlequin. The LA-based artist's debut has been compared to Department of Eagles' Dan Rossen and it's not difficult to hear the similarities thanks to the low-fi piano ballads, off-kilter string arrangements and aged, over-dubbed and enigmatic vocals. Lead track To Move On, along with its accompanying video is one of the better singles to come out this year, with the album being a very welcome distraction in a year that couldn't end sooner.