Bleachers

About

Few artists have had a bigger decade than Jack Antonoff. And really, those who have (Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, The 1975) eagerly credit at least <i>some</i> of their success to his artistic geniu. <i>Bleachers</i>, the self-titled fourth album from Antonoff’s Springsteen- and John Hughes-worshipping New Jersey rock band, arrives 10 years after their spirited debut and feels like the start of a new era. It isn’t so much that their sound has changed—they’re still making life-affirming Turnpike anthems laced with various strands of nostalgia (the sha-la-la ’60, the fist-pumping ’80s)—so much as their lens has shifted. While much of the band’s prior work dealt with grief (Antonoff’s sister died from cancer when he was 18), here, they plant their feet firmly in the present: He’s newly married, turning 40, and, per the project’s tone-setting opener, “right on time.” “I tend to work with people who have a gut feeling about something and just want to find it,” Antonoff tells Zane Lowe. “That's all making an album i. The music I'm writing and the stories I'm telling, the magic is <i>right now</i>.” <i>Bleachers</i> is brimming with those stars and stories: Lana Del Rey, Clairo, Florence Welch, Matty Healy, St. Vincent, and his new wife Margaret Qualley all make low-key appearances on songs that embrace things we too often lament (getting older, feeling smaller, the suburbs). On “Isimo,” he captures the weight of lifelong commitment. “I see marriage and partnership in a very intense way,” he tells Lowe. “It's easy to share the fun stuff with someone, but will you share the really ugly parts of yourself? It's not an attractive part of myself; I can spin an attractive concept that sounds poetic about someone dealing with grief, but the day-to-day of that is not fun and attractive. I wanted to celebrate that in that song.” .

via Apple Music

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