“I really feel unusual,” Alex Sauser-Monnig sings on their new document, Alex, “however 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 celebration 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 Surprise—solely these songs have way more on their thoughts. Alex applies the playful sound of early-2010s alt-pop to the extra troubling realities of life as queer individual 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). Not like the extra muted debut, Alex is upbeat and endearingly desperate 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 comfortable spot for this type of quirked-up indie pop can be handsomely rewarded. Sauser-Monnig devotes the opening tracks to the fun of a brand new crush, filling “Discuss to You” with handclaps and beginning off “Arduous 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 dysphoria, however the best way Sauser-Monnig’s songs deal with such awakenings feels extra mischievous than didactic, like a toddler attempting out a brand new curse phrase.
Beneath Alex’s cutesy presentation are some very actual points, and the album would possibly 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 “working via the woods/Whereas the water rises.” It’s in all probability the one tune about late capitalism with a goofy staccato piano solo within the center, and someway it captures the cognitive dissonance in a approach an outwardly mournful tune can not.
When the tempo slows, there are a number of moments of true relaxation: The unassuming “Willow” sounds prefer it would possibly sway forwards and backwards endlessly. At instances the songs’ polish outweighs their complexity, like when “Morning in Madison” begins to resemble George Ezra’s cloying grownup modern hit “Budapest.” However Sauser-Monnig normally earns the good thing about the doubt, even at their most saccharine. “Good day 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 day by day life in a disaster. On Alex, Sauser-Monnig actually seems like they’re having enjoyable; they’re simply not in denial about every thing else.
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