After a dark period of silence for singer-songwriter Natalie Prass, she finally returns in June  - and with a sweet taste of something new.  Prass blames her creative delay on a depressive vortex she experienced after a certain 2016 presidential election.  However, the source of her beautiful transformation?  Overcoming the obstacle.
          The sound of a new Natalie Prass is fresh out the gates with the single, “Short Court Style.”  This song is catchy, well-put-together, and much more fun than anything she’s released previously.  Other leading tracks have skipped up a notch as well.  It quite sounds like the old Natalie Prass stirred with a step-up in rhythm and a structure of pop underneath.
          Beginning with the track “Hot for the Mountain”, Prass’ classic style begins to fill out the rest of the album.  She is unarguably defined by her voice.  Uniquely high, fairy-like vocals make her very easy to identify, and such an indistinguishable voice is no longer placed only over something sad, slow, and soft.  Instead, the album offers her old style touched up with a bit more jazz and poetry.
          She claims that her source of inspiration, what phased and delayed the album to its final product was a change in vision.  She decidedly approached her revolving gloom with a new attitude – one of unfounded positivity.  Surely enough, a brand-new, happier Prass comes through on the album with “Short Court Style”, “Sisters”, and “Never Too Late”.  The remaining weight of the album is carried by some cool and jazzy work impressing upon Prass’ original sound.  Her track, “Far From You” sounds the closest to something from her classic days.
          Perhaps this observation clues into the album’s title.  A progression of fresh, near-pop sounds start to lean into mere jazzy revamps of her old sound.  A description of: “The Future & the Past.”  All in all, Prass has stepped up her game: executing her precisely individual vocal talent with something a little bit faster and a just little bit smarter than before.
7/10