Released: 19th June 2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Since releasing her debut album ‘Stranger in the Alps’ in 2017, Phoebe Bridgers has gone on to release music with her side-projects boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Centre, as well as exploring what it’s like to be at the helm of production with the likes of her pal Christian Lee Hutson. Somehow still finding time to focus on her own creative ventures while maintaining every semblance of nonchalant relatability, ‘Punisher’ is a welcome expansion on the conversational lyricism that piqued our interest in the first place.
With a guitar tone which bleeds throughout the album in an ethereal calming way as it envelops you in a cloud of reverie; Phoebe’s voice all but caresses the listener, all melancholy and spirited. From slipping in quips about serial killers, playing dead, and wanting to kill somebody before they beat you to it, it would be easy to mistake ‘Punisher’ for being uncompromisingly morbid – that’s where Phoebe’s distinctly apathetic charm oozes. In the eponymous track she sings, “I swear I’m not angry, that’s just my face” for clarity in a somnambulant song about people seemingly knowing everything about you, yet nothing at all, and in a way, it completely sums her up as a person.
To take the album simply for what it is on the surface would be a huge discredit to the talent behind it. This is the kind of album that seeps under your skin the more you listen; romanticising the everyday and highlighting the beauty in the mundane.
Tyler Damara Kelly
