ALBUM SPOTLIGHT: ‘i felt like a sketch’ - key vs. locket
‘i felt like a sketch’ is the debut record from Brazilian artist key vs. locket and is an emotional rollercoaster packed with heart wrenching lyrics and beautiful melodies. key vs. locket is the alias of Laura Almeida, who you may know as twikipedia. kvl’s artistic progression has seen her go from digicore internet artist, to a noise pop rocker, to midwest emo singer.
The album has a mix of songs in English and Portuguese, with songs like ‘tackle’ and ‘rifle’ being entirely English, songs like ‘mundo’ being entirely Portuguese, and songs like ‘half enough’ having a mix of the two. kvl has so much passion in her voice no matter the language, and delivers heartfelt melodies relentlessly.
‘symptom’ and ‘mundo’ are among the most passionate tracks on the project, touching on themes of self image and an unrequited love. Both of these tracks are led by equally interesting guitar riffs and almost math-rock style progressions. The math-rock influences pop up here and there, especially on the tracks ‘only human/anywhere at all’ and ‘medicine’, with the electric guitar work being an incredibly groovy ear worm.
The acoustic tracks are excellent too, showing some amazing variation on songs like ‘a play’, which is perhaps the most quintessentially midwest emo song on the entire album, while still having the unique touch that kvl adds so effortlessly. ‘conjoined’ is another amazing acoustic track and despite being an interlude it is one of the best tracks here. With a guitar reminiscent of Ichiko Aoba and a voice that could soothe anyone, this track is perfectly placed in the middle of the tracklist and makes the most of the interlude label as possible.
This album doesn’t shy away from grand movements, and ‘snowman, snowman’ and ‘promise’ are exemplars of this. Both tracks ebb and flow, starting slow and building to energetic climaxes. ‘promise’ especially progresses quite nicely, led by the technical guitars, emphatic drums, and of course kvl putting her heart on her sleeve. The outro of this track is one of my favourite moments of the album and the payoff from the building tension is worth every second.
‘medicine’, ‘hourglass memory’, and ‘nothing for a moment’ are all some more great additions to this album, each providing unique sounds while keeping the central sonic focus and themes present. ‘nothing for a moment’ especially has a really nice outro similar to ‘promise’ where the building of tension bursts in a colourful explosion of sounds and noises.
The beautiful conclusion of ‘i felt like a sketch’ arrives with the song ‘carpe diem avem’. It’s comfortably the longest song on the album, sitting at 5 minutes and 16 seconds, while all other tracks outside of ‘promise’ don’t even crack 4 minutes. Over the runtime of this track kvl becomes the most introspective she’s been yet, once again writing about themes of loving, longing, and learning. The buildup and payoff is gorgeous; ending with a bittersweet yet hopeful tone and wrapping up the album wonderfully.
For fans of midwest emo and adjacent genres, you’d be doing yourself a disservice to not check this album out. An absolute must listen for 2025 as the debut album from key vs. locket.
Listen to the album below.