Artist: Diane Coll
Strangely in Tune
Year Of Release: 2026
Label: Happy Fish Records
Genre: Folk, Folk Rock, Singer-Songwriter
Quality:  flac lossless (tracks)
Total Time: 00:41:40
Total Size 264 mb


Tracklist

01. Better Fly Me Right
02. In and Out of Time
03. Carolina Wren
04. Disappear
05. The Dream of You
06. Porcupine
07. Double Feature
08. Tell Jupiter, Hi
09. Half Along the Way
10. Othering
11. Strangely in Tune
12. Happiness
13. Dream Away

Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Diane Coll’s latest long player, Strangely in Tune, is an album-long meditation on the trials and tribulations of these things called life and love. Sonically speaking, it’s both jangle pop and folk rock with occasional singer-songwriter flourishes, while her lyrical confessions and observations are often masked by poetic allegories. As she explains in the press release, “Nebulous times can break us open and yet, they also contain the alchemy to put us back together. Like Kinti, broken pottery is mended with gold-flecked glue, then re-fired into a piece of art more beautiful and valuable than its original form. What a metaphor for human resilience!”

Though they don’t possess the same glossy pop sheen, at times the songs remind me of the Bangles circa the 1980s, especially those rare instances when bassist Michael Steele stepped to the fore; she and Coll share a similar vocal timbre, especially on songs such as “The Dream of You,” “Porcupine” and the minimalistic title track, about how Coll feels when she’s making music: “Strangely in tune, happier, too,” she sings, “No matter who stomps on these shoes, I’m strangely immune.”

The album opens with “Better Fly Me Right:” “Woke up to find wings on both sides/Guess I better fly me right….” They could be the wings of a nightingale, but odds are she means the flowing feathers associated with angels, given that she later admits that she’s “not the fallen kind.” The second cut, “In and Out of Time,” explores how broken hearts don’t repair themselves in a day or month; it takes time no matter the cause—whether a relationship’s end or a loved one’s death, grieving has its own timetable. “Carolina Wren” continues the mood with an apt metaphor about the power of love, while the impressionistic “Disappear” again, at least for me, conjures the garage pop of the Bangles.

“The Dream of You” moves past the heartbreak to embrace the potential for new love: “Like a freshly fallen angel with some battle scars/With others, my heart was in danger/Yet, this dream lights up the dark/And, I’ll know who you are.” New love, as she shares in “Porcupine,” comes with metaphoric quills attached to its figurative body; you’re sure to get hurt if you don’t handle it with care. “Double Feature” flickers like an action movie, while “Tell Jupiter, Hi”—released as a single last week—floats through the atmosphere and into the fifth dimension.

“Half Along the Way” is, in some respects, a status update of a sort about her heartache and recovery. Coll momentarily gazes away from her naval on “Othering,” which decries the dehumanization of certain segments of the poce. The title track and “Happiness,” the song that follows it, share epiphanies—including one too many people never learn: contentment only comes from within. The album closes on a perfect note with the piano-led “Dream Away,” about the peace we associate with sleep; a part of me hears it as about death, if I’m being honest—“There you go to sleep/Across the veil, gracefully/So many there to greet you joyfully/I believe”—but that may be due to having witnessing a loved one’s final passage.

In short, Strangely in Tune is something of a cathartic throwback, conjuring the soundscapes many of us enjoyed during our youths while exploring the heartfelt realities many deal with in the present. It’s well worth many listens.