The force is strong with the boygenius troika just now, with their respective most recent albums turning out to be among my very favourite of the last few years - Lucy Dacus's Historian, Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher and now this one.
Little Oblivions is the first time I've listened to Baker in any sustained way and it has a heavy punch along with the glittering melodies and cathartic crescendos that drew me in. In songs like "Hardline", "Relative Fiction", "Repeat", there's a weight that's of a piece with the surface enticements and the album as a whole grips.
I read an interview by Jia Tolentino recently where she said that, when she was a child, she has this idea that "Unchained Melody" and "I Love You Always Forever" were the two perfect pop songs that existed, and, in a different vein, a piece by Amanda Petrusich in the New Yorker about the end of genre, both of which seem relevant, somehow - maybe in the way that Baker et al continue to forge forwards, drawing on elements familiar while creating something new.
