by Evan Welsh (@evanswelsh15)
For the better part of a decade Pat Flegel, the one-time guitarist and singer of the short-lived and wonderful Canadian band, Women, has been performing and recording as Cindy Lee, releasing two albums and a tape of terror and noise-soaked pop songs. What’s Tonight To Eternity, the third full-length project under the name, maybe Cindy Lee’s most fulfilled and fulfilling record yet, with moments 1950s and ’60s-tinged pop fighting their way to the surface of feedback and abstracted noise, poignantly investigating the intertwining nature of love and hurt, beauty and horror.
Opener “Plastic Raincoat” encases listeners in a hazy, gossamer atmosphere that, while gorgeous, hints towards darker, more vicious realities and feelings just outside of the periphery—interjecting guitars break-thru the fog on the back end of the song. The cracks in the soundscape fully begin to reveal themselves on the dichotomous “I Want You To Suffer,” which is one part vampiric and bright with shrill, bouncy harpsichord and propelling drums, and one part feedback-laden cacophony of oppressive noise.
“The Limit” and “One Second to Toe The Line” work mostly to continue to build up the nostalgic pop aesthetic that is so crucially juxtaposed by the more challenging, corrosive tenets of the Cindy Lee project. The latter of these two songs especially feature Flegel’s patented shimmery, intricate guitar lines and stands out on the album as the closest thing to a straightforward reconstruction of a warm, ‘60s pop song about yearning.
“Lucifer Stand,” the second seven-plus-minute track drives with a pulsing, new-wave synthesizer which reiterates, in a slightly different method, the ominous gothic overtones of What’s Tonight To Eternity’s melancholic commentary on the loss of love in its many forms. “Just For Loving You I Pay The Price” is a washed-out ballad about toxic relationships—only slight imperfections in the ambiance arise from the occasional singing from Flegel, but these vocals barely even reach the surface, again signaling something more poisonous beneath the glistening surface. Then, the elegiac waltz, “Heavy Metal,” written in honor of the late Women guitarist Chris Reimer, allows the album to peacefully glide into heartbreaking and inevitable silence—it is probably the most sincere track in the Cindy Lee or Women catalog, and a touching final reflection on the loss of a loved one.
Flegel’s solo endeavor remains the strangest, most exciting project to have risen from the ashes of Women. What’s Tonight to Eternity is at once a challenging and welcoming pop record. Flegel has created a special type of record that is a wistful call to the past and an uncomfortable confrontation with the present and future. Embrace discomfort, destroy beauty, and ruminate on the circumstances that have led you here—Cindy Lee has always felt like an exploration of the most uncomfortably distorted corners of sweetness, nostalgia, and love—What’s Tonight To Eternity revels in that meditation.