Released: 2020
We’re now officially in that era where pandemic records that definitely weren’t pandemic records are now pandemic records, because our minds are mush and our sense of time has been completely eroded to point where jeez – anything could’ve been from anytime.
Phoebe Bridgers second album Punisher wears those temporal associations, along specifically with Fiona Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters, both as reminders of the few experiences which actually made the walls feel like they were moving out not in.
Punisher was a work of intent, broadening and deepening the singer’s palette and in turn appeal. Kyoto was arguably it’s most orthodox moment – brass section, big swabs of indie rock – but the confidence it portrayed was somewhere between fragile and a lie she allowed listeners to believe in because it was just easier. Strewn with contradictions, it’s a pandemic record, although clearly it’s not and never was.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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