Phoebe Bridgers
Punisher
Dead Oceans
Listen Below
I’ve been waiting for this album in a way that I don’t usually wait for albums. Usually, I’m waiting to see what the artist is going to do next, what new choices they’ll make in songwriting, instrumentation, production, and so on. But I’ve been waiting for Punisher in a different way, mostly because I’ve been listening to Phoebe Bridgers’ 2017 debut Stranger In The Alps relentlessly since quarantine began.
On Stranger In The Alps, Bridgers invites you in. Her stories and feelings on that album are often sad, but you get the feeling that the person singing them recognizes that they’re sad. She wants to help you through them with her grounded instrumentation and clear soundscape. The Phoebe Bridgers who’s singing sneaks a sense of reassurance past the Phoebe Bridgers in the story. You can count on her, like a cool older sibling who’s going to break some bad news to you but is still there for you.
Punisher is not interested in offering that reassurance. The ambient opener “DVD Menu” tells you right away that we are not grounded this time—we are floating, untethered, through whatever is about to happen. Bridgers has her own stuff to worry about; your comfort as a listener is not really a material question this time around. On the cover, she’s staring up at the night sky, an image that repeats throughout the album, to remind you of how very small one person can be in all of the overwhelming madness of now.
Which is not exactly what I wanted to hear in June of 2020, but she’s not wrong.
The tracks on Punisher float through space. The solo piano and acoustic guitar of the debut record have been replaced by reverb-rich electric guitar and synthesizers. There’s barely any percussion; when a hi-hat emerges halfway through the album-closing “I Know The End,” it feels like an alien object.
Which isn’t to say that Punisher is yet another indie album that’s decided “we’re going to do a dark album. Bring in the echo!” The production is more creative than that; “Chinese Satellite” builds climaxes that are followed by unexpected stretches of quiet, resisting the urge for big, satisfying resolutions. “Kyoto,” an upbeat track about the malaise of tour, uses a fun horn break to mirror the voices telling Bridgers that she ought to be having a good time, which is a fine trick. But when the horn returns during “I Know The End,” they’ve lost all sense of irony and march toward an unexpected, but ultimately satisfying catharsis that’s much more Godspeed You! Black Emperor than it is indie rock.
The big outlier is “Graceland Too,” near the very back of the record, which includes a banjo and a violin, two instruments rather foreign to the aesthetic on the rest of Punisher. While the song does disrupt the sonic texture of the album just before the big finish, the smooth, uninterrupted violin part nearly replicates the function of the synthesizers found in the rest of the record. No matter where you go, that airiness is there.
Lyrically, Bridgers continues to play to her strengths. So often, she offers the smallest details and lets the audience extrapolate the rest of the story (see for example “we fought about John Lennon until I cried,” from “Moon Song”). She also still keeps imagery from becoming overblown; Punisher’s outer space motif doesn’t feel melodramatic, or even metaphorical. It’s an event, the kind of thing you do when you’re feeling a certain way (or hope to feel a certain way). She just happens to be in a place in life where she’s looking up at the night sky an awful lot.
“I Know The End” is a finale in every sense of the word, unifying the lyrical and emotional content in ugly catharsis. It’s where the sadness on the rest of the record has been heading the whole time, toward this noisy release valve. Finally, Bridgers’ dreamy vocal delivery, the last uncracked piece of foundation, comes undone. It’s a moment of vulnerability that was promised the second that “DVD Menu” hung in the air unfinished, and it hurts.
While I can’t say I was prepared for Punisher to ask as much of me as it did, I’m still moved by it, unsettled by it, and captivated by it. I want to turn it inside-out for the next three years, just like I did with Stranger in the Alps. And if that needs to be hard, well, I guess everyone’s in a place in life where they’re staring at the night sky a lot.
Notable Tracks: “Chinese Satellite” | “I Know The End” | “Kyoto” | “Moon Song”
Note: As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism may earn commissions from purchases of vinyl records, CDs and digital music featured on our site.
LISTEN: