What does one make out of an album with a title like “Love Letter?”

Kitchie Nadal’s second album (third if you include the five-song CD Drama Queen TV) is a far cry from her self-titled first album. Gone are the hard-hitting rock guitars, and with it the “in-your-face” lyrics. Love Letter is, arguably, more mature because of its introspective feel and its piercing metaphors. In some instances, like in “Takipsilim,” one has to dig deeper because it feels like it is telling something more than telling the story of a few kids playing hide-and-seek. And don’t get me started on the song “Love Letter.” I have yet to figure out what it’s about. There was a time when I think I’m getting what the lyrics are talking about, then suddenly it shows an aspect that just doesn’t fit with what I had in mind. But as my friend Mari Arquiza once pointed out, sometimes it’s not about the meaning of the lyrics, but about the effect of the song. Thus, whenever I would listen to the song “Love Letter,” I just let it take me to its surreal environs where “With all the alibis and dandelioned skies, I danced across the floor with no corner to hide.”

But not all songs in Love Letter are metaphorical puzzles or surreal paintings in song. Some are pretty straightforward, and heavily emotional in their simplicity. One such example is “Tadhana” which could probably be every brokenhearted person’s theme song. The song “In a Big Way” Kitchie’s collaboration with the Dutch band Insight, is another such straightforward song.

One distinctive quality of Love Letter is that it is thematically spiritual. Not just in a feel-good, all-praise kind of spiritual. As she did in her album Kitchie Nadal, Kitchie again shows the different aspects of spirituality, some of which some Christians would rather not talk about: walking by faith in the dark, God as shepherd, grace amidst failure and sin, deception by false teachers, support of fellow believers, among others.

It was about four years after Kitchie’s debut album that she came out with Love Letter. Personally, it was worth the wait, though it also means waiting yet again before Kitchie comes out with her next collection of songs that are manifestations of her divinely inspired genius.

Photo by Ernie Pena