HOMEWARD

A massive 90+ minute album released from Zelda Trixie Lulamoon's creative alter ego, Vylet Pony, this one in her 20th year, the listener gets to experience more of Zelda's increasing range and variety as she experiments with more new sounds and instruments and an ever-growing list of collaborators. Orchestration! Raw, raunchy vocals! Brasilian lyrics and musical style! more EDM and, of course, her continued mastery of the keyboard kingdom--both in her Joe Hisaishi-like piano and broad (and effective) use of synths. Of course this is another epic soundtrack to a My Little Pony world-based story. (Whether or not it's a story of Vylet's own design is unsure to me.) The video game and anime-like EDM themes, scenes and songs are so powerful--so fully realized! Vylet is definitely a master of the genre--which makes me often wonder that she doesn't render all of her musical ideas into this powerful world of musical expression--especially since it matches up so well with the anime world that she's so dedicated to.

This must have been quite the undertaking--especially if Zelda was trying to live a full life on the side! While it is not quite so seamless in its flow and continuity as other Pony albums she's released, it is for the most part, I believe, quite successful at reflecting an alternate reality--through immersion within this very empowering and expressive "alternate" universe.

Of the five Vylet Poney albums I've heard since 2017's masterpiece, Mystic Acoustics, this is the one that definitely seems the most immersed in the My Little Pony universe--the least connected to and expressive of the 21st Century Earth-based world that Zelda was born into. Does this distance connote a disconnect, chosen or unconscious, from the circumstances and "reality" of her own life? The miracle of Homeward, if this is, in fact, the first album release after Gwen's realization and/or declaration of her trans status, that she has so many collaborators involved with the project. I'm glad she had so much support!

Most powerful songs for me include "Roses," "Penumbra," "The Armada," "An Odyssey," "Swarm," "Elysium," the Star Wars-ish "Cataclysm," and the metal-EDM mashup, "Danger Close."