Phoebe Bridgers made her name with lyrics as dry as they were devastating. Her own brand of nihilistic indie rock earned her second album, 2020’s ‘Punisher‘, critical acclaim, an army of new fans and a first Grammy nomination. Even Taylor Swift took note – inviting her to join the Eras Tour and sing on a ‘Taylor’s Version’ track. She was no longer just Pitchfork famous; she’d hit the big time.
But since early 2023, save gigs with her beloved boys Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, Bridgers disappeared – forgoing what was once a superonline presence for an almost hermitic existence. Fans were desperate for more solo material, for a glimpse at her life… a wry Tweet. But nothing came.
Behind the scenes, Bridgers was experiencing a succession of life-altering events that shook her very foundations: the break-up of a high-profile relationship, the start of another, the new and ugly side of fame that comes with parasocial fandom and the sudden death of her father, Tony Bridgers. Pharbs – as her fans are known – will be familiar that Bridgers’ relationship with her father was complex, as alluded to on ‘Punisher’ track ‘Kyoto’. It is a song that, despite its peppy, sing-along chorus and subsequent TikToks from indieheads holidaying in Japan, was felt deeply by anyone with a somewhat lacking dad.
And it’s here – on her much-anticipated third album ‘Lost Weekend’ – that we find Bridgers, trying to make sense of these seismic shifts: something she does with the kind of specificity that lets you feel the lump in her throat and the sting in her eye.
From the first track, it’s clear her gallows humour is still intact, and at just 46 seconds in, we’re handed our first gut punch. “Crying in a suit and tie / But you should see the other guy,” comes a heavily autotuned vocal, placing us at her father’s funeral. “One more time for old time’s sake / I watch him get carried away.”
Past interviews have touched on her father’s battles with addiction and hinted at violence in the home. With this sprinkling of context, the vivid image conjured by those opening 26 words is testament to the quality of her songwriting.
The record continues to flit between a series of vignettes, that find Bridgers falling in love with new partner Bo Burnham – referred to as Bobby across the record – the collapse of a significant relationship [‘Governor’s Waltz’] and returning, often, to grief: to the finality of it, the incomprehensible nature of something so flat where there is truly, nothing to be done. As ever, Bridgers’ dry wit keeps the record from buckling under its own emotional weight.
For the most part, Bridgers has assembled the same expansive group of musicians as her previous records. Ethan Gruska plays across multiple instruments, Tony Berg on guitar, Marshall Vore on drums, Rob Moose on strings, Christian Lee Hutson (and wife Maya Hawke) as a writing partner… but there are additions, too. Most notably producer Jack Antonoff and musician Alex G. Bridgers’ Boygenius bandmates make appearances on backing vocals [‘Lost Boys’, ‘Haunted’] as does Burnham. Conor Oberst pops up on one track. There’s also a mysterious ‘Son-John Johnson’ credited on tracks ‘Kill Me’ and ‘I Can’t Wait’, who sounds remarkably like Cameron Winter…
If Antonoff’s name prompts an eye roll – which of our alt-pop-indie faves hasn’t he claimed? – his tell-tale techniques are well veiled. Sonically, we’re still in the ‘Punisher’ universe, though perhaps a little further from the sun. Acoustic guitar, synths, strings are the connective tissue. But there are plenty of moments that stray from a core Bridgers sound, often with erratic-sounding interstitials, prompted – we’re told – by a recent love of ambient music. There’s immediacy, too. ‘Haunted’ is a finger-clicking country song with pedal steel and lyrics about hitting the road, old friends and broken hearts. ‘Never Going Back Again’ starts as a campfire anthem, repeating the titular refrain before introducing a gut-wrenching voicemail from her late father.
‘Governor’s Waltz’, provides the most headline-friendly moment: “And she can pretend to be me / Since she took my place in my bed on that stage / I have not lost any sleep,” she sings. We’ll let you read between the lines on that one.
Fans who love the poppier ‘Kyoto’ or ‘Motion Sickness’ will be sated by lead single ‘Lost Boys’ – it’s as radio-friendly as we’ve heard Bridgers to date – and by ‘Bobby’ and ‘Liberty Tree’: both tracks transporting us inside a relationship that serves as a saviour.
But it’s the peppering of light and dark that makes this record astonishing. If love and grief are two of the strongest human emotions, then this is an album that stitches them together with invisible thread.
As private as Phoebe wishes her life to be – she’s declined interviews in the run-up to the album release – it seems she has no choice but to lay everything out in her art. She’s always been a literal songwriter – inspired by the weird little nuances in everyday interactions. Her need to retreat could have seen album three become a concept record about an alien invasion, (as were the rumours when the first in a run of secret pop-up shows were announced in Roswell, New Mexico), but instead, she’s ploughed the depths of human emotion: love, death, apathy, violence to create a record that is so unbelievably personal and revealing, it speaks entirely for itself.
‘Lost Weekend’ is released on August 14th. Pre-order below.
