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//Building Bridgers: Finding light in the dark.\\

If I gave you the name of Phoebe Bridgers, you’d probably look back at me with little understanding as to who she is or where she came from. I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly where she came from (any more than her home state from Google) – since her intermittent explosion became unrivalled overnight in 2015 – but I will certainly do my absolute best to tell you exactly who she is as a music artist. In fact, it may very well be my honour.

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Thoughtfully reflective marked with a presence of murky darkness and comparable beauty, Bridgers sophomore album, Punisher, pushes the boundaries of her flexibility of a songwriter.

Where other lockdown albums personified the fury and frustration within a worldwide crisis at the time, Punisher is more a melancholic tale of dampening that anger into a more comforting neighbour: sorrow.

At its core, Punisher is a moment when you strip yourself down to bone and lay bare to those before you – often with the fear of losing face if mistakes were ever admitted. My repeats have been Kyoto and Chinese Satellite, a respectable nod to the Japanese capital through its euphoric horns and a fitting tribute to the untimely passing of a friend, while Garden Song and Halloween are close seconds, with a sombre birdsong matching up with Bridgers’ lovable gothic traits and dressing up for frightful nights.

Often at the expense of my brew going cold while this album immerses me in the prospect of just looking up to the sky, Punisher is a cathartic state of our most deepest inner thoughts laid bare to all. It is certainly a stalwart return after Phoebe’s debut Stranger in the Alps in 2017, which featured the heart-filled indie-pop cult classic of Motion Sickness. Which, if you’re going to know any single by Phoebe Bridges, it would be that one.

Soon, it will be the entire 11-track work of Punisher before you know it.