Indie singer/songwriter Phoebe Bridgers’ popularity boomed after the release of her acclaimed 2017 debut Stranger in the Alps. Bridgers’ melancholic, sardonic songs combined with her dry sense of humor and her candid delivery of emotionally charged songwriting finds her in good company with the likes of Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, and other contemporaries of the same ilk. Bridgers’ second solo album Punisher arrives after two collaborations: the 2018 EP from Boygenius (Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker) and Better Oblivion Community Center, a collaboration with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. With Punisher, Bridgers offers up a set of hushed songs that find her expanding her sonic palette and maturing as a songwriter. Punisher tackles themes of love, death, fear, apocalyptic possibilities, and the anxieties of the hard times we’re currently navigating, bringing solace to a broken generation of sad, lonely, and disenfranchised souls. Sonically, Bridgers expands exponentially from her acoustic-based debut Stranger in the Alp with strings, horns, and waves of mellotron melodies and nylon guitars. Notable tracks include: the hazy folk ballad “Chinese Satellite”; the haunting “Halloween”; the bright and jaunty track “Kyoto”; the country-tinged “Graceland Too”; the beguiling ballad “Savior Complex”; the poetic “Moon Song”; the tentative love song “Punisher”; and the travelogue that takes place at the end of the world “I Know the End.” Phoebe Bridgers masterfully creates a dark, sad, smart collection of songs with emotional depth and self-awareness on Punisher. – Written by JFelton
SIMILAR | Julien Baker, Bedouine, Better Oblivion Community Center, Boygenius’, Lucy Dacus