On her marvelous second album, Phoebe Bridgers defines her songwriting: candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart. Her music has become a world unto itself.

Phoebe Bridgers is a master of collapse. The 25-year-old California native writes songs for those moments when things fall apart, when language fails, when you long for so much distance that you need a spaceship to reach it. From there, she is able to find a sense of purpose, or at least make a plan. “When I get back I’ll lay around/Then I’ll get up and lay back down,” goes a couplet in “I Know the End,” the closing track of her stunning new album Punisher. Across the song’s two halves, she tethers the anxiety of leaving home to a vivid depiction of an actual apocalypse: lightning crashes, fire rises, people scream. “Yeah, I guess the end is here,” she deadpans. Her delivery is light, insistent—the casual tone you use to convey passing thoughts to the closest person in the room.

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Pitchfork
Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher Review (8.7)