Kevin Bronson on August 10th, 2022

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Singer-songwriter Alex Lilly’s 2019 album “2% Milk” was a mighty feat of pop spoonbending. Smart, bright and cheerfully yet defiantly outside-the-box, Lilly’s songs beam with the charisma of someone who can tell hard truths or divulge secrets with a knowing smile. As we wrote back then, her synth-pop is the work of “a chanteuse with a box full of toys, making three-minute modern art pieces out of musical Legos.”

Today, Lilly announced the Oct. 21 arrival of a new album, “Repetition Is a Sin,” via Inara George’s Release Me Records. She explains the title of the record, made with engineer James Riotto, by invoking “Seinfeld’s” George Costanza. “Do you know the episode where George decides to do the opposite of everything he usually does just to see what difference it makes in his life? I could keep making mistakes, but they had to be new ones. Musically and personally. Repetition is a sin.”

Lilly introduces the album on a decidedly whimsical note — and she’s exceptional at that. She name-checks almost a dozen of her friends (and her late cat) in the lyrics to the single “Frank,” mildly confessing: “I don’t wanna go to heaven / Cuz none of my friends will be there / Oh no one will be / Getting plastered with me / In the air.”

“These are all real people mentioned in the song, except for Frank,” Lilly explains. “I don’t know who he is. Maybe I will someday.”

For now, he is “a man in a burning chair at the bar.” Order him another.

||| Stream: “Frank”

||| Previously: “Goodbye Reckless Things,” “Infantile,” Alex Lilly’s artist playlist and “2% Milk”, “Distracting Me,” “I Can’t Tell You,” “Photogenic Life,” “Paranoid Times” (feat. Tre Hardson of the Pharcyde), Zero DeZire, live at the Masonic Lodge, “Bad Dreams” (in Touché), “Everything He Wants” (in Touché), “Tropical Fish” (as Obi Best), Obi Best interview, as Colorforms