Review Summary: Knocked on every door, until one opened
Looking back, Cassandra Jenkins’
An Overview On Phenomenal Nature was one of 2021’s standout records. Marking a significant advance from her already lovely little debut record released four years prior, it revealed an artist truly coming into her own - its New Age-y take on shimmering ambient pop emerging fully-formed, mourning the loss of Jenkins’ tour mate David Berman through a string of thoughtfully philosophical songs anchored by one of the most transcendent tunes of the century so far (“Hard Drive”). Given all that, it came as quite the surprise to me to learn, while reading the promotional materials for the artist’s third album, that Jenkins had originally intended to close out her musical career following her sophomore effort. In short,
An Overview On Phenomenal Nature was an “intended swan song”, in its creator’s own words, rather than the unforgettable announcement of an emerging indie star I perceived it as.
Fortunately, Jenkins ultimately reconsidered her plans - otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, with me writing about the singer-songwriter’s latest offering, the grandly-titled
My Light, My Destroyer. I say “fortunately”, because this is a very, very, very good album. But, we’ll start with my one criticism of the record - this is a rather unfocused listen. This assessment is perhaps easily explainable given this album emerged from a rush of revitalized creative energy after Jenkins decided to continue her musical career, even while incorporating a number of songs she’d been holding onto for a while, unreleased. In the end, the sense of direction is often a bit unclear here - at times, Jenkins seems to be envisioning this release as a rock-ier album (she cites Tom Petty, PJ Harvey, and
The Bends among a lengthy list of influences), at others the tunes inhabit the sedate and languid climes she’d previously explored with such success on her previous LP. And, throughout, there are also a lot of interludes - by my count, five of the album’s thirteen tracks aren’t exactly “songs” in the conventional sense.
This isn’t to say that nothing binds together
My Light, My Destroyer as an album rather than a simple collection of unrelated songs - the titular dichotomy, which is repeatedly sung in the record’s elegant centerpiece “Omakase”, finds resonance throughout in Jenkins’ balancing of cosmic and personal themes - for all the lyricism about space-time, planets, and meteorites, these songs are equally about the ornate inner workings of human hearts and souls. But still, there’s a certain choppiness to the tracklist - bouncy rockers like “Clams Casino” and “Petco” stand out dramatically against the plush dreaminess of “Devotion” and “Tape And Tissue”, and besides the (awesome) initial three song run, the rest of the album finds interlude-ish tracks breaking up the flow regularly. I’ll note that these respites aren’t without merit - the ending of the spoken word segment in “Betelgeuse” is oddly affecting (“
Did we see it? Someone did…”) and, if Google Translate can be trusted, the French of “Attente Telephonique” has a lovely poetic lonesomeness to it - but there’s no denying that the tracklist feels less cohesive overall than it might.
Setting aside any gripes about the album’s unwieldiness, though, this is an absolutely gorgeous record. Indeed, it measures up quite well to its worthy predecessor, even if their respective strengths and weaknesses are arranged differently. While
An Overview On Phenomenal Nature was a tight record which thrived via a rich atmosphere accentuated by a smattering of incredible moments (plus that one all-timer highlight tune),
My Light, My Destroyer might be more scattershot in presentation, but its display of brilliance is also more wide-ranging. Here, the arrangements deserve credit, rich and imbued with various strings and woodwinds, but never feeling overly busy. Jenkins’ voice is absolutely gorgeous (as always), but even more than usual she displays an utter mastery of the material, giving just the perfect delivery to get the most of each lyric. And those lyrics are very good, both quite meaningful and ripe with memorable turns of phrase - “
I saw two doves, wrapped up in filthy and true love” or “
punch the clock in the face” or “
stick figure Sisyphus” for the win. I’ve already noted that the much-regretted interludes have their share of positives, but the full-blown songs are, without fail, of notable merit. Jenkins pulls off the more energetic tunes impressively (“Clams Casino”, in particular, is a total jam), while also shining in the more subdued ambient pop mode of tracks like “Devotion”, “Delphinium Blue”, and “Omakase”. And then there’s “Only One”, a late-album standout which dips into a more pop-centric groove. In the end, though, it’s “Aurora, IL” which might be the finest song on offer, managing to impressively fuse the dreamier and rock-ier tendencies on display here into one marvelous tune. Its narrative threads the line between lonely and existential, while retaining a certain irresistible beauty, a surefire confirmation of my gut sense from three years ago that this artist deserves consideration as an essential voice in the music scene. Warts and all,
My Light, My Destroyer is an accomplished effort, and given the context of its release, I’m very happy we get to listen to it.
