Erika Weber releases album ‘Love It Or Lose It’

I went into Love It Or Lose It expecting a fairly straightforward singer songwriter record and came away genuinely surprised by how much personality Erika Weber has packed into it. It is catchy and easy to get into, but there is a lot going on underneath once you start paying attention to what she is actually saying.

The title pretty much tells you where Weber is at. Love her as she is or leave her alone. Across the album she works through the last two and a half years of her life, moving between relationships, friendship, self doubt and the strange process of figuring yourself out in your mid twenties. The songs feel less like chapters of one carefully constructed story and more like diary entries written while everything was actually happening. That is a big part of what makes the record work.

There is vulnerability here, but Weber never seems interested in making vulnerability the whole point. Some songs catch her questioning herself, others sound like she has finally had enough of doing exactly that. Friendship is just as important as romance too. The people who stick around and remind you who you are become part of the emotional backbone of the album.

Dance With Me is an immediate standout. Built around Weber’s acoustic songwriting with pop percussion pushing it forward, it is the kind of song that can slip easily into the background before a lyric suddenly pulls your attention back. That balance runs through much of the record. Weber clearly knows how to write something catchy, but she leaves enough underneath the surface to make you want to come back.

Working with Joshua Valel Thomas has also opened up a different side of Weber’s music. There is a confidence to the production that suits where these songs are coming from without making them feel overly polished or disconnected from the person writing them.

Even the visuals seem to understand what makes the album interesting. They play with the different versions of ourselves we show other people, including the cheerful, carefree one that can exist at exactly the same time as everything privately feels like a mess. Weber describes the imagery as unencumbered, nonchalant and playful, and those words could just as easily describe some of the album’s best moments.

Love It Or Lose It feels like catching someone halfway between questioning who they are and deciding they are actually pretty comfortable with the answer.