I was discussing
Punisher with a friend yesterday, along with Phoebe Bridgers’ debut LP,
Stranger in the Alps. This friend asked me ‘Do all of the songs on an album need to be breathtaking for the album to be breathtaking?’. The answer is, of course, no. I can count on one hand the albums I feel have a total of zero weak or filler songs. Even
Stranger, which we both hold very dear to our hearts, isn’t perfect. My friend cannot stand Killer, and I likewise often find myself skipping Demi Moore.
The issue with
Punisher is that none of the tracks blew me away. It’s not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination; Bridgers’ lyrics and vocal performances are even better than on her debut, again hitting that sweet spot of being sad and intimate but not falling into the territory of bleak or morbid. It’s a tough line to tread, and, for the second time running, Bridgers shows that she has a colossal talent for lyrical storytelling and emotional metaphor.
Where
Punisher falls down, however, is the lack of diversity in its runtime.
Stranger in the Alps excelled in its ability to have a song open up from a single acoustic guitar into a cathartic climax. In
Punisher, there is a real lack of this variety. Kyoto is the staple full-band single, and Chinese Satellite does have a very satisfying finale, but apart from those two tracks, and the closer, every song is subdued. It is enjoyable to start off with, but by the end of the album, the cool synths and low, plodding drums begin to drag.
It’s frustrating because none of the songs are
bad. They’re all enjoyable on their own, but as an album,
Punisher just doesn’t really go anywhere. This is true until the final song, I Know The End, breaks out into a huge wall of sound at its finale.
Punisher has no real build of momentum in its second half, so this final,
Illinois-esque explosion doesn’t feel earned. You can tell that Phoebe Bridgers had an awful lot of fun making this record, but at times it feels as if she went too far.
That’s not to say that
Punisher has no great songs. The aforementioned Chinese Satellite is an excellent highlight, and hearing
boygenius bandmates Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus make vocal cameos in the sparkling Graceland Too is always welcome. This album just doesn’t have anything that properly catches your ear. As soon as
Punisher finished, all I wanted to do was listen to Scott Street again. And I think that is the biggest criticism I can give for it.
