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Phoebe Bridgers
doesn't write love songs as much as songs about the impact love can have on our lives, personalities, and priorities.
Punisher
, her fourth release and second solo album, is concerned with that subject. To say she writes about heartbreak is to undersell her blue wisdom, to say she writes about pain erases all the strange joy her music emanates. The arrival of
cements
as one of the most clever, tender, and prolific songwriters of our era.
Bridgers
is the rare artist with enough humor to deconstruct her own meteoric rise. Repeatedly praised by publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, Pitchfork, The Fader, The Los Angeles Times, and countless others,
herself is more interested in discussing topics on Twitter, deadpanning meditations on the humiliating process of being a person, she presents a sweetly funny flip side to the strikingly sad songs she writes. Fittingly,
is fascinated with, and driven by, that kind of impossible tension. Whether it's writing tweets or songs,
' singular talent lies in bringing fierce curiosity to slimy and painful things, interrogating them until they yield up answers that are beautiful and absurd, or faithfully reporting the reality that, sometimes, they are neither.
pulls together a formidable crew of guests, including the
Julien Baker
,
Lucy Dacus
Christian Lee Hutson
, and
Conor Oberst
as well as
Nathaniel Walcott
(of
Bright Eyes
),
Nick Zinner
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Jenny Lee Lindberg
Warpaint
Blake Mills
Jim Keltner
as well as her longtime bandmates
Marshall Vore
(drums),
Harrison Whitford
(guitar),
Emily Retsas
(bass), and
Nick White
(keys). The album was mixed by
Mike Mogis
, who also mixed
Stranger in the Alps
.
On the album's epic, freewheeling closer, "I Know the End,"
orchestrates wails and horns, drums, and electric guitar into a sumptuous doomsday swirl, culminating in her own final whispered roar. This is
in a nutshell: devastating elegance punctuated by a moment of deeply campy self-awareness.