Album Review: Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
Punisher is a beautiful cohesive album that beautifully displays Phoebe Bridgers’s voice and song writing talent. The cover captures it perfectly the mixing of love songs in dark red and a lonely and haunted color of blue. Released on February 16th, 2020, the album Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers is a cohesive and creative group of perfectly mended songs. The Album mix of what Phoebe is known for, sad graphic folky ballads with anxiety inducing love songs. Punisher is her sophomore album, and it shows improvement from her debut album Stanger in the Alps which didn’t have as much diversity in song types as Punisher does. The album was inspired heavily by Halloween, she told Pitchfork in an article. Bridgers is also influenced by her favorite artist Elliot Smith whose songwriting style can be seen as an influence in this album according to NPR.
The album starts off with “DVD Menu” a perfect introduction to the album just being an instrumental track. It then goes on to “Garden Song” a love song with a melancholy haunting sound, as shown when she says, “everything is growing in our garden, you don’t have to know that its haunted.” Its underlying sad message is overshadowed by the upbeat melody. The album then goes to the rock song “Kyoto.” Much like “Garden Song” it has an upbeat tempo that hides the true sadness behind her lyrics. Originaly intended to be a ballad about her relationship with her father, it has lyrics like “I wanted to see the world, then I flew over the ocean, then I changed my mind.” These lyrics have Phoebe’s known melancholic feel but are paired with a rock beat. However, none of the sadness is hidden in the next two songs, “Punisher” and “Halloween,” both having a haunting sound with blunt sad lyrics like “either I’m careless or I wanna get caught.” But these lyrics are still paired with Phoebe’s wit that makes the songs a perfect melody of feelings. Track 6 titled “Chinese Satellite” is about Phoebe’s feelings about death paired with an echo sound of her voice making it arguably one of her most lonely sounding songs.
Now the saddest songs on the album “Moon Song” and “Savoir Complex” make the listener feel that “waiting to be stepped on feeling,” according to Pitchfork. Phoebe’s voice sounds like she is on the verge of tears in both tracks which only adds to the effect. She reverts to her folk ballad sound, like songs of hers from the past like “Georgia” and “Smoke Signals.” She describes vivid scenes perfectly and really displays her storytelling abilities on these tracks. The third and second to last tracks “ICU” and “Graceland Too” are more uplifting and more what you could categorize as love songs.
The final song off the album is the perfect ending to the cohesive album that is Punisher. Titled “I Know The End” Phoebe talks about not wanting to be in her hometown if an end-of- world event ever happens. It starts off slowly sounding like the beginning of “Moon Song,” but it picks up pace and the instruments get louder, and Phoebe’s voice builds as she sings “The end is near.” Featuring a trumpet and others voices as she repeats these lines over again until she screams.