Arlo Parks’ wonderful debut ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams” is all about roll and flow

“Collapsed in sunbeams / Stretched out open to beauty however brief or violent,” opens Arlo Parks’ debut album, the British singer-songwriter serenely invoking the album’s title, “Collapsed in Sunbeams.” It’s something shy of a song, this 60-second opening track, rather a spoken-word poem backed by stereotypically tranquil guitar picking and ambient swoons.

But it’s clearly intended as a thesis: “We’re all learning to trust our bodies / Making peace with our own distortions / You shouldn’t be afraid to cry in front of me …” the track ends. Parks will set off, along the next 38 minutes, to help listeners make that peace, find something of a pacified compromise with ourselves. And maybe we will cry in front of her.

The album’s first full song is “Hurt,” an almost jazzy composition leaning on pop, soul and a straight-running bass line. Parks’ humming, the chorus, the bass, all contribute to this album’s strongest feature: its roll and flow. More on that later.

The refrain of “Hurt,” “Just know it won’t hurt so / won’t hurt so much forever,” sets the tone for many of the album’s tracks, at once acknowledging the hurt and looking forward in candid optimism.

The next highlight is “Hope,” which moves the drive from steel strings to keys, giving this a wonderful, soulful mood. The stuttering drums and subtle cymbals drive this track. It’s moody, too, as Parks sings with languid relaxation, “you’re not alone / like you think you are …” in the chorus.

Like with “Hurt,” this is not a Sara Bareilles “I wanna see you be brave” chant of affirmation, though. It’s much more complicated than that, the chorus juxtaposing strongly with every verse. “Started sweating bullets when her dad asked, ‘How d’you really feel?’ / She said, ‘I’ve been feeling like something inside me wants to scream’ ”

Parks creates little snapshots, vignettes of third-person characters in many of her songs, which gives them a sort of surveying wisdom and takes the pressure off her individual presence. Her poetry and lyricism stand out as perhaps the album’s strongest feature; the composition is equally profound and enjoyable.

“Caroline” is a great example of this. It follows a narrator witnessing a public breakdown, digging into the relationship of an “artsy couple” to ask deeper questions of it. There’s a sense of mystery here about the couple: What happens next? What happened before? And the chorus is like a fresh explosion of harmony and sound.

“Black Dog” brings forth the album’s biggest lyrical concern: mental health, living with oneself. If it wasn’t clear from the “Hurt” and “Hope” lyrics, “Black Dog” will make obvious the dichotomy of light and darkness that her lyrics are often concerned with: “It’s so cruel / what your mind can do for no reason,” she sings on “Black Dog.”

The remainder of the 12 tracks embody the album’s only notable weakness, that while no track on this album is necessarily bad, there are brilliant tracks and not-quite-so-brilliant ones, and because all of these songs take aim at the same mood-space, they draw comparisons to one another.

Another way of putting this is that “Collapsed in Sunbeams” doesn’t quite branch out enough sonically to be a perfect album. The songs all sound pretty similar. While “Green Eyes” and “Eugene” live up to the brilliance of the album’s first half, many of their neighbors lack a little bit of the awe-inspiring smoothness.

Parks closes out on a high note, though, with my personal favorite, “Portra 400.” It’s a perfect imagine of the album, upbeat but lyrically acknowledging the bittersweet flavor of this whole work. “Making rainbows out of something painful,” Parks sings. “Getting fried is how I’m dodging gravestones.” But the pianos flutter playfully in the background, and Parks’ voice is beautiful.

Parks’ debut is, in a word, wonderful, and we can expect to see a lot more from the 20-year-old singer-songwriter. This album is like a downstream flow of energy, and each song funnels you deeper and deeper toward that rolling, immersive current. It’s the perfect mixture of neo-soul, low-fi and pop ingredients, coming at a time where all those things are more than welcome.

Julien A. Luebbers can be reached at julienluebbers@gmail.com.