On its surface, Jordan Lee’s debut proper as Mutual Benefit scans as breezy and beatific, with the intricate piano, incidental wind chimes and light strings forging the sensation of hazy summer days lounging in long grasses. Listen in to Lee’s chewed wisp of a voice, however, and a heartbreaking narrative bobs to the surface. Faced with a loved one sinking into a deep depression, he struggles with the fact that dumb love is all he has to save them: he can only ever comfort, not cure. As such, Lee’s lyrics are sometimes sentimental to the point of potentially seeming trite, but they’re logical for a situation where love and pain have become so overwhelming that simple statements seem the most trustworthy.
Laura Snapes