Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend is a stellar study of grief, grudge and devotion

Despite soaring performances, most tracks feel more grounded than those on Punisher. You can hear crystallised guitar strums amidst angelic harmonies, fervent drums colliding with sharp viola. By the time “Bobby” comes on, you may have settled on the fact that Lost Weekend is Bridgers at her most expressionist self, and it’s the best she’s ever sounded. Hardly any instrument is muted like before. Each piece builds up and explodes into a supernova of monolithic feelings, particularly grief, grudge and devotion. This newfound magic in her music – extroverted, snappy, outdoorsy and at times celestial when need be – is an excellent vehicle for violent emotional landscapes in which words are rendered hopelessly futile.

When “Lost Boys” was out, some people shielded their disappointment behind its gorgeous astral finish. On the album, it’s a necessary song of reconciliation, albeit one of the weakest of the whole bunch, to the relief of many. A characteristic from it persists, however: the tendency towards unstructured lyricism that sometimes lacks the gut punch of Punisher’s most cutting couplets and metaphors. “Haunted”, a British-weather track full of harmonica and pump organ, outlines heartbreak in plain, face-down terms. “I’m gonna put myself together,” she sings with Julien Baker. “You can go or you can stay.” The catharsis that sprouts from this diaristic, uncomplicated approach makes up for its occasionally painful simplicity nonetheless, à la “that thing in a box I don’t fuck anymore” from “Bobby”.

Scenes, on the other hand, are still painted with utmost care and precision. On “Still Standing”, Bridgers brings to light one with her parents, possibly from her childhood years: “I found her bleeding over the sink / But when you said sorry, you were looking at me / I can’t remember what I said.” Such specificity elevates the holistic experience of Lost Weekend, a record dedicated to her deceased father, whom she had a constrained relationship with. We can grasp the impact of this unwieldy familial connection even on her love songs. “Why don’t you sing me to sleep?” she croons on “The Governor’s Waltz”, “I was too happy to feel at home”. “Other Plans”, the album’s spaciest track, details her regret from subconscious restraint: “I should not have driven home / I was gonna show you colours you had never seen / And leave you alone”.

But nothing on this record can rival Bridgers’ stellar sound design. From the carefree whistling that begins the besotted “Liberty Tree” to father’s haunting voicemail that concludes “Never Going Back!”, every sonic element on Lost Weekend successfully lulls you into the galactic afterlife realm and raises an existential question: what does it take to live a truly fulfilled life amidst these sorrows? The title track glides with a steady synth-led panorama at first, then blooms into a ferocious black hole of electronica to encapsulate her inner psyche. Its sample of Paul Lansky’s “Notjustmoreidechatter” arrives rather as a shock but is a perfect symbol for inexplicable overwhelm. Many songs collapse into expansive and spellbinding sound collages like this, fine-tuned by the impeccable synergy between her, Jack Antonoff, Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska.

Bridgers has always had a knack for cohesion since Stranger in the Alps. On Lost Weekend, she ups the ante by merging multiple resources into one that defies categorisation, an ongoing trend amongst great album artists. What sets her apart from her common peers, however, is how much agency she gives to the music itself. “Panorama” and “Lost Parade” are lush instrumentals recounting the anxious tidal waves of ups and downs within a romantic relationship, led by seething synths and vocoded vocals. On the closing track, organs sketch the atmosphere of a funeral. She sets the final scene: a dog barks from the outside; a hymnal call lands midway, to which she responds with her own clear voice as farewell. “You love me, and I won’t ever let you forget,” she sings in a whisper, hands clutched on to hope. “Not yet”. With production as convincing as it is, you have to believe her.