Sharon Van Etten

“I [USED TO] CUT MY HAIR ON PURPOSE SO THAT MY BANGS FELL IN FRONT OF MY FACE SO I DIDN’T HAVE TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH PEOPLE BECAUSE I GOT PANIC ATTACKS ALL THE TIME.”

building block to where I wanted to get to, but I knew from those recordings that these are going to be a lot more apocalyptic sounding than where we are right now,” she says. Van Etten tapped into this state of living catastrophe by cultivating and twisting the instrumental palette she had come to embrace on Remind Me Tomorrow, employing the use of drones and suffocating synths, but also minimal and bleak arrangements, leaning into the heaviness of her feelings rather than some sought after silver lining. Throughout her career Van Etten has had the innate ability to scratch at the exposed nerve of her own soul, conjuring catharsis from broken things. “You chained me like a dog in our room/I thought that’s how it was/…it made me love more.” “It’s not because I always hold on/It might be I always hold out.” “I can’t wait until we’re afraid of nothing.” “I’m a sinner, I have sinned/We’re a halfmast fag in the wind/It’s our love.” Delivering lines such as these across her discography, Van Etten has always managed to address the complexity of pain, whether self-inficted, perpetrated against her, or some combination of both. With We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, her perspective of this pain has changed from someone examining the remains of something that couldn’t be repaired or saved, to the pain that could potentially dismantle that which she has come to hold most dear, namely her family. Like millions of other Americans during the pandemic, Van Etten was weighed heavily by the unknowns of COVID-19, at the same time masking her own anxiety and fear to create a positive environment for the wellbeing of her son. “I defnitely had many days where it was like, ‘It’s the end of the world, and nobody’s telling us, but I’m not going to do us any favors by freaking out,’” she says. “But I also had my harder days. The diffcult part is you can’t stay in them very long because you have to be present for your family and go through the motions, even when it’s hard. Your kid is only as happy as you are, or at least as happy as you’re pretending to be.” She adds, “I think that whenever you love something so much…I never thought I’d be in love as much as I am with my partner and I didn’t know I’d love someone as much as my child. These are indescribable feelings, and as much as it is joyous it’s also terrifying. It’s like you want to do nothing else but to protect them and do anything you can, whether it’s jumping in front of a bus or just going to the grocery store. I mean you hit a certain age where you start thinking about your own death, and you realize what a reality that is. And then when you’re also surrounded by events and news that feel so apocalyptic—you just realize how precious life is. So then you just want to hold on to things even tighter.”

ALL THAT’S WORTH PROTECTING

Van Etten’s passionate, anxiety-fueled need to safeguard the life she’s made for herself and the people she cares most about is incredibly rational when you look at who she was and what she had experienced over a decade prior. “I think about who I was then, I was kind of a wreck—an emotional wreck—who hadn’t really come to terms with anything in my past that had occurred,” explains Van Etten. “But I was still so blindly driven with music without having any real plan or any real goal.” Almost told to the point of becoming lore at this point, Van Etten grew up a native of New Jersey before enrolling in Middle Tennessee State University to study music recording. Dropping out a year later, she fell into an abusive relationship with a partner who actively discouraged her from playing music. While everyone assumes it was this toxic boyfriend that caused her to pack what she could carry and leave in the middle of the night, another signifcant impetus for her departure was the post-traumatic stress she suffered after being sexually assaulted by a stranger. “I was having all these fght or fight responses and my sister few me out to where she was living at the time,” says Van Etten. “She let me live with her for a while until I got back on my feet. But I didn’t know that I had PTSD. I didn’t know what it was. I was just chain smoking and being very anxious. I didn’t realize my way of dealing with my panic attacks and my anxiety was to use smoking as an excuse to leave the room or have my own space. I would go outside, and I would sneak a smoke and I would calm down. I didn’t realize that it was actually really the act of breathing and space that would help me slow down.” With the encouragement of her sister, Van Etten reached back out to her parents, with whom she hadn’t spoken to for a number of years. With the condition that she would go to therapy, she moved back in with them until she got back on her feet. The therapy sessions, Van Etten says, were the beginning of her learning how to deal with her anxiety, learning how to talk about her experiences, being able to understand what triggers her, and knowing how to either avoid them or work through them. One of the ways she accomplished the latter was writing songs. “All these emotions that I didn’t know how to express would come out,” she says. “And even if I didn’t always come up with the right [lyric], just the act of singing, that catharsis helped me so much. My therapist, she was a singer back in her day, and she encouraged me moving to New York. She was like, ‘I think these are positive things for you to work towards, it makes you feel good. You have to work with that and focus on the things that make you feel good and make you feel better, while you also work through your anxieties.’” Adopting an unrelenting drive, Van Etten committed herself to the goal of being a music artist. At points living out of her car and touring cross country, staying with friends, apartmentsitting, and subletting in the city, Van Etten would give away burned CDRs of her self-recorded songs and say yes to just about every opportunity she could get to perform. “I busted my ass, but I didn’t feel like I was busting my ass,” she says of those early days. “It was super fun. I just liked being busy, having this funny, blind ambition without expecting any kind of outcome other than to play.” She did all of this despite still be riddled with anxiety (“I cut my hair on purpose so that my bangs fell in front of my face so I didn’t have to make eye contact with people because I got panic attacks all the time”), eventually catching the attention of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, who would deliver a nameelevating cover of Van Etten’s song “Love More” at the 2010 MusicNOW Festival in Cincinnati. The fandom of Van Etten became so genuine that it would eventually lead to her opening for The National on tour and Aaron Dessner going on to produce her 2012 breakthrough record Tramp. Olsen isn’t at all surprised by the status Van Etten has come to hold as an artist. “[She] just truly feels things and means what she says,” says Olsen. “There’s no wall. She’s right there with you when

she speaks and when she sings. And she’s right there with her fans too. It’s not about fame or recognition. It’s very much a way to connect and to share in a safe, limitless environment.” After years of delivering critically acclaimed records, exhaustive tours that have her taken her across the U.S. and Europe, side ventures into television and flm, the irony is not lost on Van Etten that at the time of making We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong—despite a global pandemic, the country’s growing political and culture divides, and her own inner fears and insecurities—she was experiencing what was arguably the most stable chapter of her life up to that point. “I’m doing all the things I said I was going to do as an artist,” she says. “I’m settling down with someone that I love. We have a beautiful child and we have a home. We’ve set this up and worked so hard, we can slow down a little bit to enjoy it, just like I kept saying I wanted to do. Now here we are, and it’s like you’re evaluating your life and how much you’ve worked—I think everyone is. And when your life choices are under the microscope, that’s the main difference. I’m in much more of a solid place in my life than [when] I made any other record.” She adds, “I’m on the path that I didn’t know I even wanted to be on, you know? I didn’t know I’d get this far in music. I didn’t know I could get this far in love. I didn’t know I’d be living in California. I mean, these aren’t things that I planned or set out for—ever. As your roles change in your life and in your work and in your family, there’s different expectations, and there’s different goals to set. So much of it is just reacting in the moment. I think you only know where you are by refecting on where you’ve been.” As for her future, aside from fnally marrying Hutchins (the two were supposed to tie the knot in May of 2020, right when the pandemic was taking hold), Van Etten isn’t foolish enough to predict what huge life events may be in store for her down the road, or for the world at large. That doesn’t stop her of course from setting her own smaller scale aspirations. “All I know is that I want to fgure out how to be more present and slow down work, so that I can be home more and better myself in other ways, to use different parts of my brain, and be available to my family, and not be on the road so much,” she says. “I mean, those are just general ideas. But I want my kid to grow up watching his parents challenge themselves. I want him to remember us being there for it. I’m not done. There’s always gonna be this feeling like, ‘I need to do more. This isn’t it!’ I gotta keep fghting. If I just think I’m done then my life is over. There’s so much to be had.”

SHARON VAN ETTEN on The Sandlot

(1993, directed by David Mickey Evans)

As Told to Mike Hilleary

In the midst of making this new record one of the biggest memories I’ll have is just having family movie nights [during the pandemic], and us clutching each other, you know, my partner and I just not knowing how to express our fear, but also feeling strangely calm. We went through a bunch of classics like Bad News Bears to The Karate Kid, sharing with our son all our favorite flms. I remember a particular day—and we had watched this movie a bunch because it was his favorite, and has become mine—but on this particular day we were watching The Sandlot. It was during one of those moments where things were looking better in the pandemic and then something else happened to set things back, and so we were in this crazy, dark kind of space where this one line during the movie just hit me. It was when the kids are all trying to get the ball signed by Babe Ruth back from over the fence. And I’m snuggling with my son and we’re playing footsie across the couch, and we’re all snuggled up with our dog. And the kids keep trying to get the ball and they don’t get it and they don’t get it and they don’t get it, and then fnally the incidence occurs where the vacuum cleaner explodes and the one kid, he looks at his friends after trying to shake off the dust and he says, “We’ve been going about this all wrong.” And I had seen that part so many times and laughed. But that night it was the frst time that I heard the line and I just teared up. And I wrote it down. I was like, “There’s something about this line.” I didn’t know what it was, but I put it on a post-it note and put it on my computer for a very long time. And I’ll just remember that one particular moment forever because that became the album title. The second part of this story is that by the time the end of the movie happened, where Benny has the ball and there’s the big chase and then he jumps back over the fence, the dog jumps over the fence, and then the fence falls on the dog. And then Smalls is the only one that tries to save him and then Benny and the rest join in and the dog comes out and then licks Smalls in the face. Well, my son jumps on our dog, who was sleeping, and in an attempt to mimic the flm, licked our dog. And the dog, being startled, bit my son’s tongue! It was a bloody mess! My son is hysterical and we have to calm him down. The dog meanwhile has completely forgotten what has happened. And again it’s the height of the pandemic and I’m texting my friend who’s a doctor, sending pictures of my son’s tongue asking about how bad he thinks it is. It’s somewhere around 10 o’clock at night and we’re just trying to get the blood to stop just to see how deep this wound is, all the while thinking about how we don’t want to have to go to the hospital. We’re freaking out. Finally, we get it to stop bleeding, but my friend is like, “It’s probably better to go to the hospital tonight than it would be in the morning and have a risk of infection. It doesn’t look like he needs stitches, but he might need some antibiotics.” So we’re getting everything ready to go to the hospital, we put the dog in its crate, we get all our stuff packed up in the car, and we’re sitting in the car about to start the ignition when our son goes, “Where’s Lindy?” I mean after all that’s happened, here I am thinking, “Is he going to be forever afraid of our dog now?” And he was like, “Where is he?” Like nothing happened. So yeah, “We’ve been going about this all wrong.” It all happened around the same time. It was both dark and funny. (Portions of Sharon Van Etten’s conversation have been abridged and edited for structure and fow, as well as clarity and grammar.)

Archers of Loaf

Reason in Decline

(MERGE)

After 24 years away, Chapel Hill’s Archers of Loaf return with their ffth album, the follow up to 1998’s White Trash Heroes. If you arrive at Reason in Decline expecting a continuation of the loose-limbed, wild-eyed, and reckless Loaf of old, you will be surprised at what you fnd. Their appeal back then lay partly in their delectably haphazard nature, Eric Bachmann’s screamed melodies and vicious lyrics striving to surface through crashing waves of Eric Johnson’s guitar. Here, though, slacker cynicism has turned to focused stoicism; fast and loose now measured and taut. There’s no pretence of recapturing the shabby, shimmering thrills of the past—this is absolutely, defnitively not a nostalgia record— instead offering a modern, masterful document of the personal and political, turning its dark, hard themes fearlessly into phenomenal rock songs. “A fash in the dark/A knock on the table/ Beautiful dreamer/Pitiful failure,” sings Bachmann on the beguiling, spectacular “Saturation and Light,” while on the throbbing “Screaming Undercover” he notes, “Everybody’s dreaming but the dream is a lie.” As earnest and honest now as they were cynical and cryptic then, these songs aren’t calls to arms, but unerring observations of how we try to remain human in the face of the horrors of the modern world. As Bachmann brilliantly puts it on the enthralling “Mama Was a War Profteer”—“We kissed as everything burned to the ground.” There’s hope here among the wreckage, as on the epic “In the Surface Noise,” where we fnd “Teenage infdels/Forming rebel cells,” but conversely, on the plaintive “Aimee,” the acceptance that “I don’t mind if we can’t fnd our way home.” It’s a tough, heartfelt record that marries hard-edged, emotionally complex lyrics to skyscraping sounds and delivers a thrilling, vital whole. These feel like the perfect anthems for our times, the past be damned. (www.archersofoaf.net)

By Michael James Hall

Arctic Monkeys

The Car

(DOMINO)

For anyone yearning for an Arctic Monkeys record that revisits the “505” or fake tales of San Francisco, you’d probably best look away now. While the era that frst put them on the map will always hold a special place in people’s hearts, one thing Arctic Monkeys can never be accused of is living in the past. Every subsequent release since the band’s debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, came out back in 2006 has strived to open doors into pastures new, often confounding expectations but never disappointing. And while 2018’s sixth LP, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, strayed away from the heavy guitar led compositions we’d been accustomed to, it also seemed the logical next step for a band that’s long since departed their South Yorkshire roots. So, with The Car as their preferred vehicle of choice, Alex Turner and co’s next journey is one of heartbreak and refection, with a soothing undertone and the occasional foray into discoera David Bowie for good measure. Written and recorded last summer at the height of the European Championships where England narrowly lost on penalties to Italy in the fnal, The Car is a deftly constructed, lavishly produced, smooth runner of an album that undoubtedly reaffrms Turner as one of the great romantic lyricists of his generation. Lead single “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball” might just be the greatest lament to a fractured relationship that Scott Walker didn’t write. While the haunting “Big Ideas” talks about “The ballad what could have been” over a poignant orchestral backdrop. “Sculptures of Anything Goes” takes aim at an unnamed subject (“Puncturing your own relatability, with your horrible new sound”) over icy synths and drum codas reminiscent of the Ultravox classic “Vienna.” “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am”—already a live favorite despite only being part of the set for a handful of shows—furrows the same wah-wah funk heaven as Bowie and Nile Rodgers did on “Let’s Dance.” “Hello You” also takes inspiration from the same era, fusing overwrought synths with swooping strings as Turner delivers his most self-refective paean (“Hello gruesome, there’s just enough time left to swing by and readdress the start”). As the title track and introspective “Mr Schwartz” continues The Car’s lovelorn message unabated, closing number “Perfect Sense” bravely declares, “Revelations or your money back.” Nevertheless, it’s a satisfying ride worthy of a return ticket many listeners will undoubtedly be repeating over the coming months. Welcome back Arctic Monkeys, your pensive musings have been greatly missed. (www.arcticmonkeys.com) By Dom Gourlay

Benjamin Clementine

And I Have Been

(PRESERVE ARTISTS)

Who is Benjamin Clementine? The British singer/songwriter is mercurial, genre-defning. He sings in poetics, and is a virtuoso at the piano. Yet, on his third studio album, And I Have Been, the 33-year-old reckons with himself, his path, and his future. Written and recorded in Clementine’s home in Ojai, California, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the album deals with love, marriage, parenting, and depression. “Like everyone,” said Clementine in a press statement, “I was also confronted with a lot of lessons, complications, and epiphanies to do with sharing my path with someone special.” After his second studio album, I Tell a Fly (2017), Clementine got married to singer/ songwriter Flo Morrissey and had two children. And I Have Been immediately appears like a letter to Clementine’s younger self, and you can hear him say, “Look who we were, look what we did, and look where we are now.” The lead-off single, “Genesis,” shows Clementine reckoning with his own origins. He’s had a diffcult life, living on the Parisian streets in his early career, and the woozy rhythm— slightly French, slightly maritime—of “Genesis” propels forward this self-portrait. “Auxiliary” feels like a direct response to the pandemic and the universal isolation therein, which Clementine uses to describe his relationship to his wife and their parenting journey together. While the more reserved instrumentation of And I Have Been is a comfort, the tracks tend to lose the magnitude that Clementine is so known for. But there’s a deeper comfort in witnessing Clementine fnd himself in the sparse piano and direct lyricism. Clementine has said that And I Have Been is just one half of a larger album, an album that has been hinted at as his last. He wants to pursue other artistic endeavors: acting (Clemetine had a minor role in 2021’s Dune), fashion design, and poetry. If this is one half of a swan song, it certainly feels like a triumphant one. (www.benjaminclementine.com)

By Ben Jardine

Disq

Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet

(SADDLE CREEK)

It would be easy for a band who debuted days before COVID-19 shut down America to have slumped on their sophomore effort—but the time Wisconsin-based rock band Disq didn’t spend touring seems to have been spent fne tuning their charmingly garage-rough sound and pouring it onto their energetic, sonically eclectic record Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet. The album is noisy, clever, and fun, with a cleaner approach to production than on 2020’s Collector that doesn’t compromise the group’s DIY feel. Fans of Pinkerton-era Weezer and Post Animal’s frst album will delight in the album’s playful melodies and subtle comedy. (www.thisisdisq.com)

By Mariel Fechik

Dry Cleaning

Stumpwork

(4AD) origin story that’s diffcult to separate from the effects of the COVID pandemic and its associated quarantines. Last year’s debut album, New Long Leg, was recorded quickly and disjointedly during lockdown. Now, after months of touring and some successful festival sets, they return with their excellent sophomore record, Stumpwork, which explores the effects of isolation, connection, and the lack of it, delivered as only vocalist Florence Shaw can. Dry Cleaning’s hook (or deterrent, if you don’t like talk-singing) is, as ever, Shaw’s deadpan recital of non-sequiturs overtop guitar-led post-punk. Where in New Long Leg the idea was crunch; in Stumpwork the idea is jangle. In fact, the vibe this time around is less anxious, with more keyboard textures and a more deliberate pace, not to mention a whole lot of melodies per square inch. The ’80s-R.E.M.reminiscent “Kwenchy Kups” and highlight “Gary Ashby” pack the triple-punch of catchy melody, cool chord progression, and sick guitar tone. Most of the tunes here are quick and tight, but a few songs in the album’s second half sprawl out, like the contemplative “Liberty Log.” Overall Stumpwork has a more compelling and consistent fow than any of Dry Cleaning’s past output. So yes, the band rocks even better on this album, but once again the real star is Shaw and her poetry-recital vibe. And I do mean poetry— her lyrics are completely distinct, obliquely observational, and oddly metered. “Weird premise/Weird premise/Staying in my room is what I like to do anyway/If you like this… you may like…” Shaw says at the beginning of “Liberty Log,” which along with the gaming mouse shouted out in “Don’t Press Me” and the line “Woah, just killed a giant wolf!” suggest lyrics borne of time alone at home, gaming on PC, and watching Netfix. She’s also got a knack for absurd imagery (“I thought I saw a young couple clinging to a round baby/But it was a bundle of trash and food”) and purposefully unfnished lines (“I’m not here to provide blank/ They can fucking provide blank”). Her mostly tuneless delivery may not be for everyone, but in consideration of her lyrical style and the band’s knotty arrangements, it really coheres in a satisfying way. Dry Cleaning may not get mentioned in the same breath as other young London art-rock groups like black midi or Squid, but they should. Stumpwork proves that this band’s style has legs. (www.drycleaningband.com)

By Scott Dransfeld

Brian Eno

FOREVERAND EVERNOMORE

(VERVE/UMC)

Brian Eno’s latest album, FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, explores the deep mind meditation side to ambient music. The tracks are musically peaceful and unthreatening: synths, gleaming prolonged notes, and the sound of birds and ASMR

breathing. Lyrically, the 10 songs attempt to pack a punch, a warning of climate change: about species dying out, capitalism, and the lack of global leadership in the face of an environmental and ecological crisis. Eno calls the songs “landscapes but with humans in them.” And those humans are angry, questioning. The only issue is that the listener doesn’t always feel that insistence come through, amidst the calm instrumentation. Yes, FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE shows Eno singing on a studio album for the frst time since 2005’s Another Day on Earth. But his vocal delivery sounds tired, lacking action. Album opener, “Who Gives a Thought,” is a glistening and beautiful synth vista, with dooming lyrics about what we choose to focus on and applaud. “Who gives a thought about the nematodes/There isn’t time these days for microscopic worms/Or for unstudied germs of no commercial worth,” sings Eno, his voice low and drawn out. “We Let It In” is soothing, “Icarus or Blériot” a droning meditation that feels like it came straight out of a sound bath session. Only “Garden of Stars” delivers any real sense of urgency. But perhaps that’s the point. While FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE sounds more like spa music, which, after three or four tracks, makes the listener want to get horizontal, it is a welcome break from the structure and form of contemporary music. Eno is attempting to make you pause, and think, and feel. The album’s redeeming note is “There Were Bells”: a swelling, emotive existential piece about the end of the world. Eno frst performed the song live in August 2021, with his brother Roger, at UNESCO World Heritage site, the Acropolis in Athens. During the concert, wildfres were raging just outside the city and the temperature had hit record heights. “I thought, here we are at the birthplace of Western civilization,” said Eno. “Probably witnessing the end of it.” (www.brian-eno.net)

By Ben Jardine

First Aid Kit

Palomino

(COLUMBIA)

You wouldn’t think that the lush, rugged Swedish scenery would give rise to music that seems to evoke a mythical arenaceous American landscape. But for around a decade and a half and over four albums, Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg have done just that as First Aid Kit, fashioning music that seems to owe more to dusty Americana-style vistas than it does to glaciers, snow, and mountain lakes. On each album, the sister’s crystalline harmonies and huge heart-swelling choruses have gained them an army of fans, awards and critical acclaim. On their ffth album, Palomino, they strike melodic gold once more with some of their most uplifting and pop-centric songs to date. There’s still a sense of open hearts and broken hearts, of wishes and kisses being carried off on the desert wind, but perhaps what comes through on this album is a feeling of liberation, freedom, and hope. Indeed, the title track itself is a symbol of escape. The album opens with the timeless pop rock of “Out of My Head,” written with producer Björn Yttlin and a track Fleetwood Mac would certainly have been proud of. Lead single “Angel” is as soaring and anthemic as anything they’ve previously written, mixing vulnerability with a pragmatic sense of acceptance whilst showing just how beautifully the sister’s mellifuous vocals combine. “Wild Horses II” is more traditional Americana fare, with vivid imagery and details of down-at-heel motels replete with Bibles in the drawers, thin walls, and ghastly, dated foral linen. It centers on a couple undertaking (or perhaps “enduring”) a road trip together. While playing the car stereo, they realize that liking different versions of the titular song is the least of their problems, but leads to a recognition of the growing void between them. It also provides yet more unassailable evidence that it’s impossible for the sisters to record an album without somehow referencing Gram Parsons. There’s plenty of nimble guitar picking, “ooh oooh oohs,” and sweeping ballads such as “Turning Onto You,” the beautiful “The Last One,” and “Nobody Knows,” as well as the more jaunty pop of “A Feeling That Never Came,” which has an air of fellow Scandie singer/songwriter Lene Marlin’s ’90s classic “Sitting Down Here.” While Palomino represents a slight shift in First Aid Kit’s sound, its evolution, not revolution and there’s plenty to admire in terms of the Söderberg’s unerring ability to craft beautiful celestial harmonies and conjure a sense of the mystical and magical out of the ether. (www.frstaidkitband.com)

By Andy Von Pip

Frankie Cosmos

Inner World Peace

(SUB POP)

Frankie Cosmos have come a long way since the band’s DIY roots. In her teenage years, singer/ songwriter Greta Kline shared a number of lo-f records through Bandcamp, establishing her prolifcacy at a young age. Her lyrics acted as diary entries, satiating a desire to account for every personal memory, thought, and feeling. These bedroom pop tunes endeared her to indie audiences, spanning everything from her dog to growing up. More than a decade into their career, Frankie Cosmos balances Kline’s poetic lyricism with a sturdy indie pop foundation. The band have solidifed their chemistry to a degree where they feel free to experiment sonically. The tracks take a playful approach to tempo, suddenly quickening as Kline’s delivery grows in intensity. On “Empty Head,” from the band’s new album, Inner World Peace, she hurriedly sings, “Sometimes I’m always bursting at the seams/And tell you about my dreams/I wish that I could quiet it.” “Aftershook” sees Frankie Cosmos add psychedelic elements and a fuzzy guitar solo to their ’00s indie rock tendencies, while Lauren Martin’s synths on “Empty Head” combine with Alex Bailey’s subtle bass groove to form an almost ambient opening. However, the band’s attempts to diversify their sound often fall short of growing out of their repetitive riffs, leading many of the tracks to blend together in a pleasant but rather predictable experience. However, the storytelling displays Kline’s openness to vulnerability. On Inner World Peace, she observes her ever-changing universe by looking inward. The opener, “Abigail,” refects on the years gone by—“It’s good sometimes to cut her slack/That version of myself I don’t want back.” Kline doesn’t want to completely let go of her younger self, declaring, “Abigail, I want you to be alive with me.” It’s a sentiment that many listeners will relate to as they grow and fgure out who they are amongst the messiness of life. (www.frankiecosmosband.com)

By Alex Nguyen

girlpuppy

When I’m Alone

(ROYAL MOUNTAIN)

Perfect pop songs are normally the purview of the three-minute and under crowd. So Atlanta based girlpuppy’s (aka Becca Harvey) “Destroyer” clocking in well over the fveminute mark is decidedly out of bounds. It’s also every bit the perfect pop song and one of the best on offer this year. The song’s driving rhythm effortlessly shifts from frst, to second, to a drum driven third gear and never lets go. Harvey is at her offbeat best on her debut LP, When I’m Alone, when her songs have a little more spring in their step and something unusual to say. With the exception of “Destroyer,” the latter half of the album drags in places (“Emma Marie” and the title track in particular) and Harvey’s tendency to longer running times does those moments no favors. But an earlier song on the slower side (“Somewhere”) benefts from a string arrangement and a classic Elliott Smith-inspired melody. Fortunately though, for most of When I’m Alone a more energetic vibe prevails. The clangorous “I Want to Be There” fnds Harvey using a stitched-together approach not unlike Alex G’s, whose bandmate Sam Acchione serves as co-producer here. While the traipsing beat and groove-heavy melody of “Teenage Dream” fnds Harvey pondering her demise in the bathroom à la Elvis Presley. When I’m Alone makes for a fne debut that shines best when the songs are quickly paced and subtly quirky. (www.girlpuppy.com)

By Mark Moody

Martha

Please Don’t Take Me Back

(DIRTNAP/SPECIALIST SUBJECT)

Durham, England indie pop punk band Martha are a testament to consistency. They have a steadfast formula and haven’t drifted too far from it in their 10 years as a band, though they’ve released a trio of excellent power pop records along the way. Take careening punk guitars, quick-fre emotive lyricism, openhearted twee charm, and heaps of pop hooks, and you have the makings of a great Martha record. Yet, for a band that has innovated in increments, their new album, Please Don’t Take Me Back, may be the best distillation of their formula yet. Like most great power pop records, the appeal of Please Don’t Take Me Back is simple and universal. Most of all, Martha are here to have fun. They’re a band that thrives on the serotonin rush of an irresistible melody, an amped-up guitar riff, or a shouted gang vocal. The choruses of “Beat, Perpetual,” “Baby, Does Your Heart Sink?,” or the title track are so elementally catchy that anyone can sing them word-for-word by the end of the song. Yet, while Martha crafts their songs on sugary pop foundations, they also approach their music with a heart and maturity that is uncommon to the genre. “Hope Gets Harder” fnds the band searching for a way to stay positive amidst ongoing overlapping crises, while “I Didn’t Come Here to Surrender” takes a defant angle toward an uncertain future. It all culminates in a fnal moment of catharsis with the closer, “You Can’t Have a Good Time All of the Time,” a track that is possibly the most joyous and communal song about facing climate disaster ever written. Many bands mix the political with the personal, but few bands make both into hopeful collective experiences like Martha does, all while remaining one of the most consistent bands in indie punk. One could question how long the band can go without changing things up, but if they continue delivering records as good as Please Don’t Take Me Back, they could go on forever and nobody would complain. (www.marthadiy.bandcamp.com)

By Caleb Campbell

Pinkshift

Love Me Forever

(HOPELESS) that you’re seeing me this way,” apologizes lead singer Ashrita Kumar just before the band tears in with all of the force of a bulldozer. That searing energy and visceral vulnerability are the two twin hearts of the band’s debut, a record that is both pummelling and purposeful. Kumar spits, snarls, and soars as guitarist Paul Vallejo crafts whirlwind riffs and Myron Houngbedji’s muscular drumming sets the record’s breakneck pace. Through nearly the entire LP, the band conjure the cathartic magic of punk, playing so fast and loud they should seemingly come apart at the seams. All along, the band walk a fraying edge between frenzied confessions and righteous fury. They explore the nihilism of a generation growing up with an uncertain future, the wounds of trauma and abuse, and the alienation of living unapologetically in a hostile world. Yet, they emerge at the other end unbowed, unbroken, and powerful. The resulting record is a stellar punk debut, claiming Pinkshift’s spot among the genre’s next generation, a future that is both more inclusive and angrier than ever. (www.pinkshiftmd.com)

By Caleb Campbell

Plains

I Walked With You A Ways

(ANTI-)

Lest there be any question that the collaboration between Katie Crutchfeld (Waxahatchee) and Jess Williamson would be country-fried, opening track “Summer Sun” hits the listener mid-twang. Both off of career-todate best albums in Crutchfeld’s Saint Cloud and Williamson’s Sorceress, the Plains project serves as more of a showcase of their individual talents than a full time gig. That being said, Crutchfeld brought Saint Cloud producer Brad Cook to the party along with his brother Phil. Both handle a myriad of instrumentation along with Spencer Tweedy on drums and Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin on mandolin and acoustic guitar. Although the assembled backing band is just as tight as Crutchfeld’s Bonny Doon support on Saint Cloud, unsurprisingly the star of I Walked With You A Ways is the strength of the duo’s songwriting. Two of Williamson’s songs here (“Abilene” and the title track) are so jaw-droppingly devastating that one can only wonder what she has tucked away for herself. The brush fre of a kiss off that “Abilene” involves itself with makes for a defnitive song for the west Texas city if there ever was one. All the others with same titled songs, namely Sheryl Crow, Dave Alvin, and George Hamilton IV (R.I.P.) can go take their rightful place in the back. Williamson’s songs here focus on moving along and the closing track, “I Walked With You A Ways,” makes for a ftting tribute for the project, but is so universally heart tugging that it no doubt will claim more than a handful of tissues. Likewise, Crutchfeld reveals a clutch of gems here as well. Lead single “Problem With It” has broad crossover appeal and shows her recent hangs with legends like Lucinda Williams and Wynonna Judd were not just a passing phase. Her strongest moment though comes on the self-referential “Hurricane,” where she takes an accounting of being anything but a shrinking violet. But the fnal hook of the vulnerably sung line, “I know you’ll love me anyway,” cements the song’s mature take on relationships. And the country lilt of the co-write with Kevin Morby, “Last 2 On Earth,” is a surefre charmer. Though a bit of a minor quibble, the one cover song here, “Bellafatima” (sung beautifully by Williamson), pales next to the artists’ own creations. The song stacks metaphor on metaphor that don’t add up to the effort Williamson gives it, while also following two of the best songs here. The true crime though of I Walked

Weyes Blood

And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow

(SUB POP)

On 2019’s Titanic Rising, Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood echoed a hurting world as she poured out her fear of loneliness, desire for love, and need to belong over grand swells of cinematic folk-pop. Her yearning heartache—expressed with deep spirituality rather than mere romanticism—resonated with many, and yet, Mering caveats her feelings on the song “Everyday,” singing, “Then again, it might just be me.” She qualifes the importance of her insights, wondering if she can trust her read on humanity or if she’s just projecting herself on her surroundings. But subsequent years of universal loneliness would prove Mering’s concerns unfounded. Her perception is true, and she lets it run free on her new album, And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, where she opens with the essential answer to her previous self: “It’s not just me, it’s everybody.” It can be dangerous for someone with a strong prophetic voice like Mering to speak for “everybody.” Yet the authority of lines like, “Living in the wake of overwhelming changes/ We’ve all become strangers” or “We know that we’re not free/ Even though we wanna be free” or “It feels like we’re burning/ Makin’ ashes of our joy” feels earned. It can be equally dangerous to eschew optimism in favor of eschatalogical claims like, “They say the worst is done/But I think it’s only just begun,” especially in a world desperately trying to end some of the worst years many have experienced. But Mering is no fre and brimstone preacher making doomsday predictions. Instead, by situating herself within a universal “We” (a pronoun used a staggering 51 times across the album), Mering has made a hopeful case for our communal interdependence. Musically, In the Darkness is perhaps her grandest, most elegant work to date—a perfect culmination of her past experimentalism and deep devotion to graceful melodies that lift from the deepest parts of the soul up to the heavens. The droning meditation that closes “God Turn Me Into the Flower” or the Pet Sounds-like mix of melancholy and elation on “Children of the Empire” feel like Mering is lovingly embracing the listener, reminding them that all we’ve experienced since 2019 is meaningful. That our brokenness isn’t in vain. That every act of togetherness is an image of a greater future. Even if the worst is yet to come, Mering’s music reminds us that community, empathy, and beauty have revolutionary power that glows unfadingly in any darkness. (www.weyesblood.com)

By Chris Thiessen

With You A Ways is that it’s over quicker than the fading moments of the Texas sunsets that color it. The album’s 30 minutes of triply tight writing, harmonies, and playing pass by way too quickly. Making the smart move here to sit a spell and marvel at the songs word-by-word and note-by-note. (www.plainsband.com)

By Mark Moody

Ruth Radelet

The Other Side EP

(SELF-RELEASED)

This frst solo endeavor from Ruth Radelet is very much in line with the music that the singer/songwriter had been making as the centerpiece of Chromatics for the better part of two decades. This EP collects material composed during a chaotic, two-year stretch full of personal changes, and was framed as if it were Radelet’s way of tying up loose ends on the previous phase of their creative career. It’s all too short, but what’s here will please Chromatics fans and leave listeners wondering what direction the next era of Radelet’s music might take. (www.ruthradelet.com)

By Austin Trunick

Suede

Autofction

(BMG) 2002’s A New Morning, didn’t meet expectations, but then they regrouped seven years later for some live shows and, soon after, 2013’s comeback album, Bloodsports. It’s a move that hasn’t just paid dividends, but has also cemented their status as one of the most consistent bands from the past 25 years, while also introducing them to a new audience in the process. Autofction—their fourth album since getting back together (and ninth album overall)—more than lives up to the standards set by its predecessors. Already described in interviews by vocalist and songwriter-in-chief Brett Anderson as the band’s punk record, Autofction represents a vast departure musically from Suede’s last record, 2018’s The Blue Hour. Yet at the same time, it easily identifes as a Suede album. Recorded at London’s Konk Studios with long time cohort Ed Buller on production duties, Autofction is as live and direct as a Suede record gets. Indeed, this back-to-basics approach works wonders in terms of the album’s fow. The album opens with the guttural post-punk of “She Leads Me On,” a kindred spirit of Joy Division/New Order’s “Ceremony” sonically. The equally boisterous “Personality Disorder” and “15 Again” follow suit, while “The Only Way I Can Love You” and “That Boy on the Stage” continues Autofction’s autobiographical context. The piano-led “Drive Myself Home” at the album’s midpoint is perhaps the most obvious Suede sounding song on the record for those familiar with the band’s extensive back catalogue. But it’s towards the tail end of Autofction when the record gathers momentum once more, particularly on “It’s Always the Quiet Ones”—which is reminiscent of Night Time-era Killing Joke—and closing couplet “What Am I Without You?” and “Turn Off Your Brain and Yell.” The latter’s grandiose statement of intent almost certainly assures Autofction’s presence in the upper echelons of 2022’s “Best Of” lists. (www.suede.co.uk)

By Dom Gourlay

The Older I Get The Funnier I Was

(HARDLY ART)

Following up the soundtrack album for his autobiographical HBO comedy special The Golden One, Whitmer Thomas has dropped his faux-Brit post-punker singing voice and gone au naturel on The Older I Get The Funnier I Was. The shift better suits his confessional style of music and comedy—as Thomas sings in “navel gazey,” “you gotta commit to the cringe and let it eat you alive.” From the playground pop of “Rigamarole” to the wistful “South Florida,” Thomas demonstrates he’s as talented a musician as he is a comic. (www.whitmerthomas.com)

By Austin Trunick

Wand

Spiders in the Rain

(DRAG CITY)

There are two versions of the band Wand. There was the earlier, skronky, guitar-based, metal-adjacent Wand, and the newer, art rock, more arranged version that now exists. Listeners are able to celebrate a decidedly scuzzy version of the band on the new live album, Spiders in the Rain. Live albums are often a good entry point for any band, and this one isn’t really an exception. They present an opportunity to rearrange old material into something different. Spiders is more the former than the latter, and as such seems inessential but pretty darned good. (www.wandband.info)

By Chris Drabick

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Cool It Down

(SECRECTLY CANADIAN)

Cool It Down is certainly an apt title for Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ ffth studio album. There’s a real sense of a band comfortable within their own skin, and unlike some of their peers, this isn’t a futile attempt to rekindle or recreate the swaggering insouciance and frenetic energy of their youth. Cool It Down is the sound of the band maturing elegantly without losing any of their creative fre. Perhaps because each member has been busy with solo projects, it’s hard to believe this album marks their frst new material for nine years (since 2013’s Mosquito). Clearly the pandemic has played its part giving the band a fresh impetus to regroup as Karen O explained that previously she’d taken the ability to make music for granted—“I felt, for the frst time, ‘What if we don’t get to do it again?’ That thought had never crossed my mind before and I really felt it profoundly during the pandemic.” So when O reconvened with fellow members Nick Zinner and Brian Chase, as well as Dave Sitek (“basically a fourth member of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, at this point”), there was a sense of gratitude and a ferce curiosity to explore what they could create together after the collective trauma of a global pandemic. The result is one of their fnest albums to date, kicking off with its frst single, the exquisite “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” a track which unfurls with an epic elegance and sees Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas cast as the perfect foil for O’s dramatic soaring vocals. Highlights include the majestic “Lovebomb,” which could be an alternative Bond theme if Bond eschewed the bombast for understated beauty. The propulsive “Wolf” is glorious, replete with an absolute killer synth riff allied to O’s spellbinding vocals. Elsewhere “Burning” conjures up the sophisticated “soul rock” the likes of Mattiel are so adept at, with O putting her own unique stamp on it, whilst “Blacktop” is imbued with a Lana Del Rey sense of doomed grandeur. The album closes with the spoken word “Mars” (which coincidently happens to be the name of the NYC bar where Karen O frst met Nick Zinner), in which O has a dream-like conversation with her son. It may be sparse but it also manages to be incredibly moving, otherworldly, and utterly magical. Cool It Down may be only eight tracks long but there’s so much to admire that you certainly don’t feel shortchanged, in fact, it reinforces just how much they have been missed. It’s great to have them back and in such sparkling form. (www.yeahyeahyeahs.com)

By Andy Von Pip

Elizabeth Stokes of

Words by Mark Redfern

To conclude, we ask Elizabeth Stokes of The Beths some questions about endings and death.

The New Zealand band formed in 2014, with vocalist/guitarist Stokes originally meeting guitarist Jonathan Pearce in high school. The current lineup also features bassist Benjamin Sinclair and drummer Tristan Deck. The band’s harmony-laced indie pop backs up Stokes’ often-wry and autobiographical lyrics. After all, the band’s 2018-released debut album was amusingly titled Future Me Hates Me and their recently released third album is titled Expert in a Dying Field. The new album was launched by “Silence is Golden,” a decidedly loud and energetic frst single in contrast to its title. “The song is about stress and anxiety manifesting as an intolerance to noise,” said Stokes in a press release announcing the album. “Where each new sound makes you more and more stressed.”

Expert in a Dying Field was mainly recorded at Pearce’s studio in Auckland in late 2021, until a four-month national COVID-19 lockdown forced the band to work on the album remotely. The album was fnished and mixed during a U.S. tour at the start of 2022, including during a three-day session in Los Angeles. Read on as Stokes discusses how she’d very much not like to die, what songs she’d like played at her deathbed and funeral, her favorite endings, and why hell is trying decide on where to eat.

How would you like to die and what age would you like to be?

Man... I really don’t want to die. I am very afraid of death, and of anyone I love dying. Very scared. So I would like to be 100 but somehow in really good shape (this is unlikely) and also everyone I love is still alive. Maybe I get struck by lightning or something.

What song would you like to be playing at your deathbed?

I think something cheerful and distracting. Maybe “Skymall” by Vulfpeck.

What song would you like to be performed at your funeral and who would you like to sing it?

“More Adventurous” by Rilo Kiley. I’d like Jenny Lewis and my best friend Chelsea Jade to sing it together. I’d come back to life for that I reckon.

What’s your favorite ending to a movie?

I love Marta sipping from her coffee mug at the end of Knives Out.

What’s your favorite last line in a book?

When Big Nutbrown Hare hits Little Nutbrown Hare with “... and back.” He really got him there.

What’s your favorite series fnale last ever episode of a TV show?

I think series fnales are usually bad, right? There’s so much pressure, so many loose ends to tie up. 30 Rock is probably my favorite comfort food show. I watched it back to front so many times, and I know the last seasons are a bit strained. I get a bit teary when Liz and Tracy say goodbye in that last episode though.

What’s your favorite last song on an album?

“Road to Joy” on [Bright Eyes’] I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. I can’t bring myself to believe there really is one, which is I think part of why I’m so terrifed of death. It was probably the hardest thing to accept when I started losing my faith.

What would be your own personal version of heaven if it exists?

I mean the version I grew up with seemed pretty great to be honest (my mum is Catholic). Everyone you love is there, everyone is wearing white linens. If you can guarantee dogs go there, I’m sold.

What would be the worst punishment the devil could devise for you in hell, if he exists?

I’m so hungry but I’m with a large group of people and I have to decide where to go but they just keep rejecting my suggestions forever. Every now and then we decide on a place but we go there and they won’t accept a large group without a booking. The process starts over.

What’s your favorite last album by a band who then broke up?

Bressa Creeting Cake’s self-titled record from 1997. They are a cult NZ band that were released on Flying Nun. The music is hard to explain, but the songs are great. “A Chip That Sells Millions” and “Egyptian Tanker” are a couple of my favorites.

What’s your favorite way a band broke up?

Jonathan was at the last Mint Chicks gig where they apparently came to blows and broke up right there onstage. I don’t think I’d say it is a “favorite,” that’s not very nice, but I guess it was memorable?

If you were on death row, what would you like your last meal to be?

My mum’s Nasi Goreng with Sambal Goreng Tempeh and Sambal Telur.

What’s your concept of the afterlife? If reincarnation exists, who or what would you like to be reincarnated as?

I’d like to be a kererū on Tiritiri Matangi Island, which is a bird sanctuary island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. Kererū are big, green woodpigeons with tiny heads. I’d like to be able to fy, and on Tiri I’d be safe from predators. Kererū also famously sometimes get drunk on fermented fruit, and I think that would be fun.

What role or achievement would you most like to be remembered for?

I’d like my songs to be remembered. I don’t mind myself being remembered so much. Imagine writing a song that became a standard or a folk song, a song that people played for years after you were gone, without knowing who wrote it? That would be pretty wild.