"Eight Pointed Star" is Marina Allen's new release

 Californian dreamer gets a little more real

Having charmed us since emerging in 2021 with two albums of short, sweet observations and curious Americana-inflected daydreams, this LA-based New Jersey native has admitted she’s now singing love songs for the first time. Either way, “Love Comes Back” retains a joyous simplicity, while “I’m The Same” benefits from the same alluringly undersung vocal style, its piano-borne riposte to an unreliable paramour subtly gilded with lap steel. 

Then the romantic disorientation of “Swinging Doors” is heightened by propulsive percussion, before “Bad Eye Opal” coos nostalgically on a warm bed of electric piano as violin wafts through the air. Gently irresistible throughout.