Lael Neale - Star Eaters Delight (LP) - Yellow Vinyl

Lael Neale’s Star Eaters Delight arrived in April 2023 on Sub Pop, and it feels like a quiet bolt of lightning. It is the follow up to her breakthrough Acquainted With Night, and it keeps the same spare palette that made that record so haunting. The Omnichord is still the heartbeat. The tape hiss is still there, like crickets outside an open window. But this time the rooms feel a little bigger, the tempos nudge forward, and the writing has a restless glow, as if the lights are on later and the coffee is stronger.

Neale has talked about returning to her family farm in rural Virginia and working on a four track cassette recorder, with Guy Blakeslee as a key collaborator. You can hear that home-recorded focus in the details. The rhythm boxes tick with a handmade patience. The chords bloom in soft, organ-like swells. Her voice sits high and clear, almost spoken at times, then it opens and carries like a bell. Blakeslee, known from The Entrance Band, helps keep everything unadorned and honest. Nothing crowds the songs. The result is a record that sounds intimate without feeling small.

“I Am The River” is the one that first hooked me. It rolls forward on a steady pulse, like a walk that turns into a march. The Omnichord strums create a shimmer that feels liquid, and Neale’s phrasing comes in clipped lines that add just enough tension. “Faster Than The Medicine” pushes that energy further. It moves with a motorik tug, a rare thing in folk-leaning records, and it suits her. The groove is simple and locked, so her voice can float above it and turn a mantra into a melody. “In Verona” sinks back into the hush that long-time fans love. The words circle around memory and place, and she lets silence do some of the talking. Small choices, like a spare harmony or a slightly louder breath before a line, carry real weight.

If Acquainted With Night introduced the Omnichord as a deliberate limit, Star Eaters Delight makes it a signature. This instrument can be a novelty in the wrong hands. Here it feels like a life raft. It links the old folk instinct of sturdy chords to the dreamy electronics that run through a lot of modern indie. That tight focus gives the album its mood. Late night. Lamp on. Radio just a bit scratchy. The melodies feel old enough to hum but new enough to surprise you on the third verse. She writes with an eye for small details and everyday transcendence, which is why these songs land even when the arrangements barely rise above a whisper.

The record drew praise from the indie press for good reason. It is rare to hear a songwriter commit to restraint and still come off expansive. There is no studio gloss trying to convince you this is important. It’s the conviction in the performances that does it. Neale sings like someone who trusts the song more than the microphone. Blakeslee’s production honors that trust. Together they’ve carved out a sound that can hold its own next to the more crowded corners of the current singer songwriter world.

On vinyl, the music breathes even more. The soft thump of the drum patterns, the slight warp of the Omnichord sustain, the air around her vocal, all bloom on a turntable. If you’re into Lael Neale vinyl, this is a lovely one to spin front to back on a quiet night. The Star Eaters Delight vinyl pressing from Sub Pop is easy to recommend, and if you like to buy Lael Neale records online, keep an eye out for it while you browse. We get asked about Lael Neale albums on vinyl all the time, and this is the one I hand over to folks who want something unhurried but not sleepy. And if you’re flipping through bins at a Melbourne record store, or hunting for vinyl records Australia wide, tuck this near your folk and dream pop sections. It belongs in both.

Star Eaters Delight doesn’t shout for your attention. It trusts you to lean in. The songs are sturdy, the atmosphere is lived in, and the performances are unguarded in a way that feels rare. By the time the needle lifts, the quiet has a shape. That is the trick Neale pulls off here. She turns small rooms into their own kind of cinema, and she does it with little more than an Omnichord, a four track, and a voice that knows exactly where to place a line.