The Californian moves with ease between folk, rock, country, and pop, in a body of work that feels both collaborative and personal.
There is in Phoebe Bridgers a patient art. Since her two Boygenius collaborators, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, established themselves as top-tier writers, the anticipation for a successor to Punisher (2020) has endured.
And here finally comes Lost Weekend, which itself takes its time. Less immediate than The Record (Boygenius, 2023) or Better Oblivion Community Center (2019, a duo with Conor Oberst), this record, crafted with Jack Antonoff among others, rewards a few listens to dispel the initial neutral impression left by its zigzag between pop (Lost Boys), folk (Still Standing) and country (Haunted).
Catchy choruses beside contemplative passages
But once its various elements are absorbed, bound from the opening The Outside by a few electronic openings, the majesty of the whole asserts itself, a shift in dimension that takes us by surprise.
The most insistent choruses sit unashamedly beside the experiments of Panorama or the contemplative stretches, when the simplest structures contend with elegant dissolutions and the title track samples Paul Lansky.
We recall that the Californian had produced with Oberst the quietly grand Quitters (2022) by Christian Lee Hutson, who co-writes most of the tracks here, where Blake Mills and the Baker and Dacus sisters also appear.
Phoebe Bridgers lifts her album with ease to heights that feel deceptively classical, in the manner of a Paul Thomas Anderson bending the great American film without diminishing its splendor. A prodigious achievement.
Lost Weekend (Dead Oceans/Modulor). Release on August 14. In concert at the Adidas Arena, Paris, on December 4.
