The melodic equivalent for a weighted anxiety blanket is here. After some tracks we’ve pained over in 2023 with The Parting Glass, Phoebe Bridgers has returned with her full album. Expect more electronic washes and sudden explosive melodic bursts from silence. Oh, and I almost forgot—lyrics that can halve you. However, this is a triple Grammy winner we’re talking about. You were ready when you clicked the review thumbnail. This is her cameo-filled, journalistic effort into her own past. We’re looking at Lost Weekend.
A long-awaited return
You tried to keep yourself away from it, but you heard Lost Boys. All the drama that unfolded in this time too. Expect a lot of personal moments scattered either metaphorically or directionally throughout—from the Paul Mescal engagement break and her father’s death to Bo Burnham’s reference and the Gracie Abrams grift. As a single message, this album originates from the engagement weekend with Mescal. She has had a year-long hiatus since then, and rather than depend on page 6s, her fans will come to her for her witty tell-all.
Unlike Burnham’s comedy special from 2020, we’re going to The Outside now. It’s the opening song to the album, a wisp of what can be the beginning of stained glass shattering. I reviewed The Strokes’ latest album recently, and killing through autotune seems to be a default response for many artists in these past few years. However, there’s a match in vocal texture with what Bridgers has attempted in previous albums. She hasn’t lost the charm; rather, she’s shed away the skeleton costume she used to wear live on stage. Lost Boys has a beautiful build and chorus section. It has the kind of maturity and wit you expect from a seasoned musician. I was drawn to the brass section in the background that add to a rich essence.
Working, through grief
The brutal Kill Me comes in next. Stemming from all the friction and the oncoming depression from her father’s death. Phoebe Bridgers doesn’t allow the sadness to wash over you. It’s surgical in the narrative, being specific in the kind of loneliness that makes a room echo. When that pain slowly starts to heal, you can expect her to have her clever cynicism appear on The Governer’s Waltz. Catnip for the press, you can call it. Not very loosely referencing Gracie Abrams, Bridgers places lyric after lyric like a quote on a gym wall you cannot escape. It will always sound like a wonderful love song, which is anything but.
There is explicit mention of Bo Burnham in Bobby, the next track on the album. With mentions of how their relationship began, sweet intimacies, and a nod to the future, this is another one that will become a staple on her live shows. He’s featured in the background vocals as well, but exactly how she imagines him—the foreground in the back. As this transcends beautifully into the titular track of the album, we’re comfortably dabbing the tears from our eyes for side B. Time completely melts away as this becomes more of a poem with a synth background eventually. These are explicit references to the called-off engagement—a certain distaste for Mr. Mescal and all the things that have changed. A lot has.
Songwriting brilliance, per usual
There is an Americana surprise that has masterfully been stitched into this album. Haunted starts like an open mic acoustic session the crowd gets into. However, Alex G doesn’t produce for any and everybody. There is a vision from Phoebe Bridgers that has been crystallised so well as we breeze heavily through themes. A stellar song with a recognisable chord progression you can dive back into whenever. At a time when we wonder who’s really writing their own songs, Phoebe Bridgers not only tears into her own personal life but also Sufjan Stevens’ it into existence brilliantly.
Panorama is a wide perspective interlude that banks on the instrumental for the visual ability it has. It has the same electronica ambience that glows in the background—with keys appearing eventually. Call it a drink break, because that’s what Phoebe Bridgers does in her breathy voice. She has taken her time to reach grieving, with Still Standing. Framed around her father’s death, memories and realisations all blend together as she’s thought this out. Bridgers decides to put them all out, the good, bad and ugly parts of what she felt about her father in one song. The rest are her memories.
The light that shines
Remember me ironically mentioning Stevens? Liberty Tree is more specific about the connection. It also is an accurate representation of what she has done on this album, taking sharp perspective and observation about her own life and making beautiful music about it. The same way there’s the wild side of her claiming all the things she wants to and places she wants to be cuts you in half. Never Going Back might have been her wanting to never return to the slow-moving pace of her home, but home has changed now with the absence of her father.
In all this, it’s evident that the question “where have you been?” is not one you’ll have to ask Phoebe Bridgers. That answer, along with all that she did during the time has been detailed with a mastery. It shines bright like her debut, and dedicates a whole new chapter to a book she doesn’t want to title yet. There’s just hope for that:
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