Conversations about dying and killing
Stranger in the Alps (2017) - Phoebe Bridgers Album Review
Reviewer's Note: This review was published June 26th 2023, 6 years after the release of the album, and after the follow up, Punisher (2020). Bridger's most recent participation had been the record (2023) by boygenius.
Phoebe Bridgers’ debut was a long time coming, at the time of her writing her first solo album she had already been part of multiple bands and groups, so she was already a known quantity in the industry. Her debut was met with really high expectations, and I can absolutely say those expectations were completely met. Stranger In The Alps is an exemplary Indie Folk album, that perfectly flows and captivates you instantly.
Bridgers’ storyteller’s lyricism, intimate vocal performances and instrumentals create a very specific tone that are the main gear of the album, the songwriting makes it as if you’re listening to Bridgers tell stories of her life, as most of the songs feature very story-like lyricism, as if there’s a continuous tale being told, being glued together by the choruses. Bridgers rarely cares about rhyme schemes and pacing on her vocals, as if the instruments are just there to accompany the stories the singer is aiming to tell. Her performance vocally is also very mild, mostly staying in the same note for a really long time without really challenging her voice, which fits the energy here and makes for a further focus on the lyricism.
The instrumentals serve the purpose of setting the tone for the album, the electric and acoustic guitars are usually the backbones of the melody, being played in standard strumming patters with a few variations on voicings (perfect for showing to your guitar teacher), though some songs like Killer and Georgia prefer to have a piano, which is a welcome variation and works really well. Like most other great singer-songwriter projects of modernity, you see a lot of songs opting into a string arrangement and some added sounds in production, the strings in Smoke Signals for example are a large focus of the song and its hook. Some songs also feature the drums, like the lead single Motion Sickness and the other crowd favorite Scott Street (which we are gonna talk about later.)
The production of the album is made by long time collaborator Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, and adds to the melancholic tone of the album. The aim of the production seems to be making the instrumentals not performed by Bridgers herself more background and mild. Granted, the instrumental palette on most of these songs isn’t large given the genre, so it’s all about achieving a good guitar sound when that’s upfront. When the songs feature the piano as the main instrument the default seems to be for it to go more to the background as well.
Stranger In The Alps starts with debut single Smoke Signals, a song that talks about being affected by someone even in their absence, how the memories of someone long gone stay with you despite the person not being. The song also seems to portray Bridgers seeing the you in question being hurt and her not being able to help. Melodically the song sounds beautiful featuring the string arrangement on the post choruses.
Motion Sickness is the second track and lead single of the journey, debuting the drums and switching the acoustic guitar into an electric one, the whole song is a lot more upbeat and really easy to nod your head to. The song is about, in Bridgers words, “Being in love with someone who is super mean to you” exploring also power dynamics related to age (”And you, you were in a band when I was born”) and influence. FUCK RYAN ADAMS
Funeral is one of my favorites here, she sings about the death of a close friend and how that affects her and everyone around her, putting into perspective her own life and sharing suicidal thoughts with friends. This is one of the songs that builds up really well, starting with just Bridgers and the guitar and slowly adding in some string elements. As the song build up the strings start getting more agitated, some synths join the composition and Phoebe sings in higher tones.
Scott Street is another favorite of mine, going on a dialogue between two people, it’s interesting because it looks pretty clear that the individual, represented by Bridgers seems much more interested in the conversation than the receiver. A great bit here that I love every time I hear is in the second half of Verse 2, the drums come in right before Bridgers sings “I asked you, ‘How is playing drums?”, really cool detail.
The tracklist continues with Killer and Georgia, which feature a piano as the main instrument, though even that seems to be on the background, leaving Bridgers alone on the foreground, save for a pretty choir in Georgia and great backing vocals from John Doe in Killer. It’s not the only song in this album to feature other vocals, Would You Rather also has a duet in its chorus with Conor Oberst. Killer dives into Bridgers darker side, her toxicity as a lover, her recognizing her manipulative ways and threats.
The final 3 main tracks of the album are Chelsea, Would You Rather and a cover of Jimmy LaValle’s and Mark Kozelek’s You Missed My Heart. Chelsea is about the murder of Nancy Spungen in 1978 at Chelsea Hotel. The theory is that she was killed by her boyfriend, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. It’s another song that deals with the idea of death, mainly of murder. You Missed My Heart fits perfectly on the end of the album, despite not being an original the arrangement makes so much sense with the rest of the tracklist. The piano sounds beautiful too and Bridgers' vocal performance in this one is more challenging than on other tracks, and sounds like it really built up throughout the other songs.
The album closes with an instrumental reprise of the opener Smoke Signals, kind of signifying a loop, that all those tales led back to where she started. Take that as you will.
Final Score: 9/10
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