I’m a big fan of Girls and when I heard Christopher Owens was leaving to pursue other opportunities I was afraid he’d just sort of burn out and disappear, so this album comes as a sort of relief. Owens describes Lysandre as an album that describes his life surrounding Girls’ first big tour and as such can be considered a “concept album.” This album succeeds in ways that many concept albums fail in as much as the individual tracks are generally enjoyable without being aware of any unifying theme but like other concept albums seems to compromise quality to conform to the concept (read: I don’t really think any song competes with Owens’ best material with Girls). Having said this, if you like Girls, you’ll more than likely find something on this album you really like, I have. Tracks 1 and 10 are statements of “Lysandre’s Theme” which recur in many tracks (the ubiquity of “Lysandre’s Theme” on the first half of the album gets a bit tiresome) and I would avoid them, but are pleasant enough if you need to kill ≈40 seconds. Of special note, New York City (track 3) has an extensive sax solo and Riviera Rock (track 6) is a reggae tune, so if you tend to like any of that, give those a spin.
