Punisher [Cassette]

Description

On her marvelous second album, Phoebe Bridgers defines her songwriting: candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart. Her music has become a world unto itself.

Phoebe Bridgers is a master of collapse. The 25-year-old California native writes songs for those moments when things fall apart, when language fails, when you long for so much distance that you need a spaceship to reach it. From there, she is able to find a sense of purpose, or at least make a plan. When I get back Ill lay around/Then Ill get up and lay back down, goes a couplet in I Know the End, the closing track of her stunning new album Punisher. Across the songs two halves, she tethers the anxiety of leaving home to a vivid depiction of an actual apocalypse: lightning crashes, fire rises, people scream. Yeah, I guess the end is here, she deadpans. Her delivery is light, insistentthe casual tone you use to convey passing thoughts to the closest person in the room.

Pitchfork
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher Review (8.7)