Hear Lera Lynn’s Punchy ‘Shape Shifter’
Lera Lynn has shifted her shape before, transforming from the stunning Americana artist responsible for 2014’s mysteriously moody The Avenues to a track-mark dotted, equally mysterious bar singer on HBO’s second season of True Detective. And now, she’s doing it once more: on the lead single “Shape Shifter” from her upcoming third LP Resistor, she morphs her sound, steering away from countrified licks straight into clever indie-rock bliss. Listen to the exclusive premiere below.
“I started writing ‘Shape Shifter’ while working on True Detective, as a way to find some balance to the gloom and doom,” Lynn tells Rolling Stone Country. “I’m not sure how to relate the song to the rest of Resistor, because it’s so different from the other songs. In fact, they’re all different from each other. In following with my typical trend, Resistor as a whole is stylistically diverse and explores new flavors from that of my previous works.”
Indeed, “Shape Shifter” is much more evocative of everything from Nineties girl-band alt-rock like Veruca Salt and the Breeders to modern artists like St. Vincent and Fiona Apple, who approach composition with a sense of fearless play while never forgetting a good pop melody’s undeniable pull. Those who know Lynn from her True Detective songs may not find a similarly slow-burning, off-kilter ballad like “My Least Favorite Life,” but they will find the same kind of texture and tension that Lynn is so adept at capturing.
Out April 29th via Lynn’s own label Resistor Music, Resistor is the Nashville-dwelling singer’s third album, beginning with 2011’s Have You Met Lera Lynn, which pulled more from country influences like Patsy Cline — infused via her Georgia upbringing — than her subsequent work. But there’s a unifying thread in her taste for mood and atmosphere, created as much through taunting lyricism as melancholy guitar plucks and her effortless coo, that makes each album flow artfully and satisfyingly into the next.
Resistor is co-produced by Lynn and Joshua Grange.