Synth Single Review: “Voicemails” by jacket. & Beachdolls

by Karl Magi

jacket. & Beachdolls’ “Voicemails” opens with telephone sounds and intense, sharp edged arpeggios that mix with a voicemail message, adding to the atmosphere. The piano-like synth glides with glassy smoothness and the guitar flows with caressing feelings while strings sing warmly before Beachdolls’ gripping, yet honey sweet voice soars with the echoing piano. 

All of the remembrance and bereft emotion pours out from the vocals with ferocious feeling, driving deeply into my heart. Beachdolls’ affectionate and broken hearted voice permeates the song above the crisp percussion. jacket. creates a melody carrying tentative, yet passionate emotion while the vocals climb with hurt and overpowering need as the saxophone adds another layer of blazing emotion, a gut punch of undeniable passion. 

After flying out unaccompanied for a moment, Beachdolls’ voice mingles with the thundering underlayer and sobbing sax before the piano slips, creating aching gentleness before the song ends. 

Admitting she was distant, our storyteller explains that she was scared of being hurt and comments, "I'm not amazing at commitment." She wrote and erased a message for the song’s subject because "you left your coat here and it's hanging in the closet." Never thinking the other person would leave her there alone, she's "listening to your voicemails on my phone," as she asks if the other person wants to hear her say that she’s “the one that got away."

"Maybe I just needed reflection, looking in the mirror, see you there behind me.” The narrator wonders if the song’s subject misses her and if they'd ever change their mind and move back to the city. Feeling sorry that she didn't see what was happening, she wishes the other person would call her. To conclude, she says "now I'm pleading and when I reach out, I hope you hear me, I'm desperately yours."