Beloved Indie Girls with Clairo, Remi Wolf, Bat For Lashes, & Jessica Pratt: Rapid Fire Reviews

If there's one type of artist I've had trouble with consistently in the past, it's the beloved indie-pop girl. Plenty of artists, usually but not always championed by cis lesbian women, that haven't clicked with me in the same way. From Mikski in 2018 to the various boygenius members at points throughout each of their careers, I've taken a lot of shit online from singer-songwriter fans. So I picked out some of those exact kinds of artists who dropped new albums this year to give them another go round and see if they click with me anymore this time. 

Charm - Clairo

First up is Clairo, whose now beloved 2019 debut album still does absolutely nothing for me. I thought her Jack Antonoff-produced sophomore record was an improvement, though it still missed my end-of-the-year list, and I include a full 100 albums. This time around she's traded out Antonoff for Leon Michels, who absolutely dazzled me last year alongside Black Thought on their collaborative effort Glorious Game. And the combinations started off quite lucratively. The album had two singles, which also serve as the first two songs in the tracklist, and I like both of them a lot. Sexy To Someone is the best song Clairo has made to date with a completely irresistible chorus and one of the most vibrant and lively instrumentals she's ever lent her voice to. By comparison, Nomad is a lot more muted and modest similar to some of her earlier work but this time with improved vocals and some great bass playing. 

But the real test of the album was always going to be the deep cuts and I'll say that it doesn't get off to the strongest start. Second Nature commits the same crime of many Clairo songs before it, absolutely dragging through the first half with a patience that becomes completely uninteresting, only to finally reach its liveliest point right as it concludes. While the album mostly avoids slip-ups that severe again there are moments, in particular Add Up My Love that fall flat in ways that remind me of Clairo's first two records. 

Thankfully the record also serves up highlights. Slow Dance is an absolutely delightful cut that's both instrumentally playful but gentle and intimate. The way the song shifts between lively instrumental passages and Clairo's own nostalgic retrospecting is great. Terrapin is another highlight with this absolutely wonderful piano arrangement. It's instrumental really steals the show but Clairo herself still manages to shine in her own moments. Much has also been made about the gentle closer Pier 4 and for good reason as it's yet another strong cut on the record. Clairo's instincts are still strong but they also still come up short about as often as her previous record. Thankfully, with a massive improvement in collaborator, there's also a massive improvement in both the sound and scope of the album. It's a big jump in quality that makes for her best record yet, even if I'm still not as head over heels for her work as many other critics. 6.5/10

Big Ideas - Remi Wolf

By the time Remi Wolf's debut album June dropped in 2021 I already knew multiple people who were flat out obsessed with her instrumentally robust pop songs. I saw her live in 2022 and she put on an extremely energetic and fun show. So even though I didn't love her debut I decided to keep my eyes on Remi. That ended up paying off big time when she dropped the second of five singles from this album. Toro is absolutely one of the best songs I've heard all year and it's been stuck in my head for months now. From its hilarious lyrics about unapologetically loud sex to its absolutely soaring chorus I love everything about the song. 

The singles make up the first 5 songs on the record and they're a pretty solid bunch. Cinderella has gotten the most attention by far and it's a pretty triumphant opener with some charming chimes and whistles that does a lot but never feels gimmicky. My other favorite is Alone In Miami which has this sauntering instrumental that feels very vintage contrasted with these hilariously contemporary lyrics it's a great contrast on a standout song. 

Among the deep cuts, there are even more highlights. Kangaroo blew me away the first time I heard it with Remi sounding like The Killers in 04. The way the transitions from the anguished verses with crackling vocal effects into a soaring heartland rock-conjuring chorus is spectacular. Wave is another highlight, a song that's not afraid to be loud on it's chorus but is incredibly sweet in its verses. What the album does well primarily is avoiding duds. Even tracks whose instrumentals aren't nearly as flavorful are still in line with Remi's exciting vocal intensity and unwavering charisma. As far as I'm concerned this is a MASSIVE improvement over Remi's debut and a quintessential summer album this year. 7.5/10

The Dream Of Delphi - Bat For Lashes

Bat For Lashes has been releasing ornate, beautiful indie pop songs for well over 15 years now. Even as she transitioned to a much more self-paced era of her career in the past decade she's continued to drop compelling music every time she pops up. That's why I was pretty excited following the release of the title track and opener as a single earlier this year. With the album itself turning up at just over 30 minutes, however, Bat For Lashes doesn't have a lot of time to waste dancing around the core of the record's appeal. The other singles do a decent job at that, Letter To My Daughter is a minimal dreamy piece that leans into the idea that a child is a continuation of all that came before them. Home is a slightly stiff but still beautiful swaying pop song whose beat is one of the most enveloping pieces of instrumentation on the entire record. 

But many of the deep cuts here seem to take the most purposefully stark approach on purpose. I'm not saying songs like Christmas Day and The Midwives Have Left are bad to listen to, they just offer up to little that they seem to drag the first half of the record to a halt. While it does get slightly better in the second half the whole record concludes with Waking up which seems to take this spacious and exceedingly patient aesthetic to it's most forgettable conclusion. It's an unfortunate way to end off a record that has a few bright spots, but largely feels merely pleasant. 5/10

Here In The Pitch - Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt is a singer-songwriter who seemed to net more and more praise with each album as the 2010s went on. I thought her third project was her best yet even though I wasn't necessarily head over heels for it. I still decided to keep an eye out for what she did next, not expecting a full 5 years to go by in between. In fact, I missed the singles for this record entirely somehow so its arrival was a surprise for me. If I had heard the singles, I probably would have been pretty excited. Life Is leads the way with a vintage aesthetic and a deceptively quiet sound palette. The track feels like Nico at her most reserved taking on one of the simpler compositions from Julia Holter's Aviary and it's grown on me a good bit. I also like the closing track The Last Year quite a bit it feels like a fitting finale for both the kinds of sounds and themes played with on the record. 

Despite that introduction though, the rest of the record is much more subtle. From the gentle vocal performances to the sauntering, bossa nova-channeling instrumentation, a huge portion of the record feels so fragile that if you listen too close it could split in half. There is no doubt something compelling to that dichotomy especially when it's served up at the most serene moments like By Hook Or By Crook and the short but very memorable Glances. While that approach is compelling, it isn't exactly versatile which results in the album's best qualities also serving as its biggest flaw. Thankfully though Pratt is more than capable of handling this style and is usually operating on her A-game without ever having the appearance of trying to hard. While it's 27-minute runtime and adherence to a pretty strict stylistic cohesion may limit the scale of what Pitch is capable of a bit, that doesn't make it any less of a delight to listen to while it's on. 7/10