Six years after Girl Who Got Away, Dido returns with an album that can be summarized by its sense of delicacy. Even when electronic percussion and layered synthesizers fill the arrangements, Still on My Mind never becomes heavy. The songs move through loss, damaged relationships and memory with the same restraint that has always defined her voice.
That voice remains instantly recognizable: breathy without sounding weak, emotionally direct without becoming demonstrative. "Hurricanes" begins with little more than guitar and vocal before electronics gather gradually around her. By the time the arrangement has expanded into synthesizers, rhythm and layered harmonies, the voice has become part of a haze without losing its intimacy.
The production repeatedly works that way. Electronic sounds create environments rather than spectacles. "Give You Up" begins with electric piano and a nearly whispered vocal before choir-like harmonies broaden the chorus. "Take You Home" uses a muted electro-disco pulse beneath airy vocal layers, while the title track gets so close to new-age textures that a less disciplined melody might simply dissolve into atmosphere.
What prevents that from happening is Dido's songwriting. Beneath synthesizers that resemble flutes, bells or ambient washes, "Some Kind of Love" is fundamentally a folk song built around acoustic guitar. "Have to Stay" could similarly survive as a country ballad under entirely different instrumentation. The production gives these songs their particular surfaces; it does not create their substance.
The more adventurous arrangements are often the most rewarding. "Hell After This" begins with electronic drums and synth-brass gestures that suggest dance music before acoustic guitar and pizzicato strings pull it toward something stranger and more baroque. "You Don't Need a God" uses less predictable harmony, while the orchestral percussion of "Walking By" gives a piano ballad unusual dramatic weight.
There is very little here designed to surprise anyone familiar with Dido, and that turns out to be part of the album's appeal. Her music has always existed in a space between folk songwriting, electronic production and adult pop, and Still on My Mind returns to that combination with unusual confidence.
The record sounds polished, but it never feels dominated by its producers. The songs could be rearranged as acoustic folk, dance-pop or something more orchestral and still retain their identity. Instead they receive the treatment that suits Dido best: soft edges, deep space and a voice that seems to be speaking from somewhere both intimate and just out of reach.
GENRE: Pop
RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2019
PRODUCED BY: Dido, Rollo, Dee Adam, Si Hulbert & Ryan Louder
LABEL: BMG Rights Management
RATING: 7/10