Music Review: Sara Lov – Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming

Sara Lov views life with so much innocence and positivity that it’s hard to empathize with someone who seemingly exhales sunshine.

Sara’s optimistic outlook could have easily been cynical or worse. Sara was at an early age when her parents divorced; and at five, her father kidnapped her and took her to Israel. She returned to the United States with her uncle and grew up to see that time in her life as constructive and essential to her being the person she is now.

The former frontwoman of dream pop duo Devics (with Dustin O’Halloran) explains that “as you get older it’s harder to find beauty and innocence in anything. It’s easy to get jaded and lose your sense of idealism. So, to find that thing that… makes you feel excited to be alive again… even if just for a moment, it’s a beautiful thing” (press release).

Sara cites music as her saving grace, giving her the strength to get her through the past years and the future ones as well. “The one thing I am certain is that for most of my young life, music was the consistency and stability I had. It was my escape and my sanity.”

Her solo debut Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming is a snapshot of every feeling and idea she’s ever had for all to see. Instead of shying away from the past, Sara embraces it and the impact it has had on her mental and spiritual development. The opening “Just Beneath The Chords” is both an ode to music and her father’s role in music being such a part of her: “You will find me just beneath the chords / It was given to me / And I couldn’t love anything more.”

Seasoned Eyes is very sentimental; some rooted in nostalgia (a pardon to her father in “A Thousand Bees”), deliberately trying to evoke specific memories or general past feelings and emotions, and others in affection (a reminiscence of a past relationship in “Animals”), firmly holding onto one thing which might or might not be of any particular significance.

The self-reflexive title track is all you will ever need to understand Sara’s past, present, and future. Thankfully, she provides another thirty minutes of graceful and honest storytelling, as told through someone wise beyond her years.