Unlike most of us, singer/songwriter Anya Marina has had a good last couple of years, from touring with famed comedian & best friend Nikki Glaser to marrying fellow musician Matt Pond. This has probably helped her keep her wry smile when so many of us have turned ours into a frown, and it comes out on the intimate & charming Asteroid.
Very intimate and very charming, Asteroid sees Marina bring you in close for a whisper like back when you were kids. That’s specifically the case in the killer childhood ditty “Nothing Lasts” (QRO review), but throughout the album Marina tells you sweet little harmonies. Her wryest takes are probably her best, like “Nothing” and the laid-back “Gimme Sugar”, but she also varies both the tone – like the sad titular opener & closer “London Blues” – and the instrumentation – “Sunshine or Shadow” is indie-rock, but “Beautiful and Stoned” piano.
We have to find friends & happiness wherever we can these days, and thankfully not only as Anya Marina done that for herself, but she’s also done it for us with Asteroid.
