“I really feel unusual,” Alex Sauser-Monnig sings on their new document, Alex, “nevertheless it’s only a pure response to a world coming aside on the seams.” Within the six years since Dawnbraker, their debut as Daughter of Swords, the world’s solely come extra unglued; Alex is a frenetic coming-out get together earlier than the clock strikes midnight. Musically, the album recollects a decade-old pressure of perky, chart-aspiring indie pop, the purview of bands like MisterWives or Oh Marvel—solely these songs have much more on their thoughts. Alex applies the playful sound of early-2010s alt-pop to the extra troubling realities of life as queer particular person within the mid-2020s, with out feeling like escapism. Sauser-Monnig’s transient vignettes are little pockets of pleasure amid societal strife and systemic erasure.
Like Dawnbreaker, Alex was produced by Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso, this time joined by bandmate Amelia Meath (Meath and Sauser-Monnig additionally play collectively in Mountain Man). In contrast to the extra muted debut, Alex is upbeat and endearingly desirous to please; anybody unwilling to make use of a goofy cartoon sound impact to allude to intercourse ought to steer clear. Those that have a delicate spot for this sort of quirked-up indie pop might be handsomely rewarded. Sauser-Monnig devotes the opening tracks to the joys of a brand new crush, filling “Discuss to You” with handclaps and beginning off “Laborious On” like a bedroom-pop model of ’80s glam rock. “I bought a tough on for loving you,” they croon. It’s a cheeky nod to gender dysphoriahowever the best way Sauser-Monnig’s songs tackle such awakenings feels extra mischievous than didactic, like a baby attempting out a brand new curse phrase.
Beneath Alex’s cutesy presentation are some very actual points, and the album may verge on glib “hey look we’re bombing Iraq” territory if Sauser-Monnig didn’t deal with the subject material creatively. On the tongue-in-cheek storage rocker “Trip,” their narrator performs millionaire for a day and discovers a lifetime of luxurious and top-shelf liquor that’s too good to withstand: “Mendacity by the tennis court docket/You contact my thigh under my skort/And I’m gone.” They counter the Sheryl Crow-esque refrain of “Cash Hits” with climate-apocalypse scenes of “operating by means of the woods/Whereas the water rises.” It’s in all probability the one track about late capitalism with a goofy staccato piano solo within the center, and by some means it captures the cognitive dissonance in a approach an outwardly mournful track can’t.
When the tempo slows, there are just a few moments of true relaxation: The unassuming “Willow” sounds prefer it may sway forwards and backwards perpetually. At occasions the songs’ polish outweighs their complexity, like when “Morning in Madison” begins to resemble George Ezra’s cloying grownup up to date hit “Budapest.” However Sauser-Monnig normally earns the good thing about the doubt, even at their most saccharine. “Whats up to the day/Espresso within the shade/Blues within the solar/Attempting to have enjoyable,” they sing on “Dance.” It’s easy stuff, however such is each day life in a disaster. On Alex, Sauser-Monnig definitely seems like they’re having enjoyable; they’re simply not in denial about all the pieces else.
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