Punisher (album)

American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers rose to prominence in indie rock in the late 2010s with a blend of subdued and specific songwriting.^[3] In 2017, she released her debut album, Stranger in the Alps, on the independent label Dead Oceans. The LP received widespread acclaim from critics.^[4] John Mayer commented that the single "Funeral" heralded "the arrival of a giant."^[5]

In the wake of her first album, Bridgers guested on songs with the National, Fiona Apple, the 1975, and Jackson Browne.^[6] In 2018, she co-founded the supergroup boygenius with musicians Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus in the lead-up to a joint tour.^[7][8] She also formed Better Oblivion Community Center with Conor Oberst—a friend who had previously appeared on Stranger— releasing their first album in January 2019.^[9][10] She also worked closely with singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson, producing his album, Beginners.^[3] Ryan Leas, writing for Stereogum, observed that Bridgers' growing body of work—particularly before releasing a second album—was already "diverse and complex".^[11]

Bridgers first began developing Punisher while on the road touring, with multiple songs written during the Stranger in the Alps roll-out.^[12] Ethan Gruska and Tony Berg, who produced Stranger, produced the album with Bridgers.^[13] She described the process as collaborative, with Bridgers drawing inspiration from friends and collaborators during the process, including Berg, Gruska, her boygenius band-mates, and Oberst.^[13] Bridgers also identified drummer Marshall Vore, whom she had also dated, as her "go-to guy" while brainstorming song lyrics.^[14] Bridgers reworked lyrics frequently,^[15] occasionally preserving jokey lyrics originally intended as placeholders.^[14]

While working on Punisher, the essays of Joan Didion provided inspiration to Bridgers, a lifelong Southern Californian.^[15] She also read and drew from the novel The Last Policeman, which follows a detective determined to solve a murder as the world ends.^[15] The podcast My Favorite Murder and her general interest in true crime similarly influenced the album.^[16] Bridgers's dog Max died during the recording process, which she said tinged the work with "just a dark, more adult take on life."^[16]

Elliott Smith, who she's described as one of her heroes,^[17] provides the basis for the title track, where Bridgers imagines him placating her as a too-eager superfan, known as a punisher.^[15][5] Bridgers thought she might self-title the album, but settled on Punisher as a self-descriptor that sounded cool.^[11] As she put it to Stereogum:

I have an opposite response to it now, but I definitely, for most of my life, was a punisher. [...] I would come up to people and ask for a picture. I hung out at the bottom of the stairs for James Blake at the Troubadour where there is no other exit. I was like, “He's trapped, but he'll be glad to talk to me.” And now it's happened to me.

Punisher was primarily recorded at Sound City in Van Nuys, California, where producer Tony Berg worked.^[12]The album hosts multiple guest performers, many appearing because they were simply around the studio at the time, including veteran percussionist Jim Keltner who performs twice on the album and musician Blake Mills—then a Sound City artist-in-residence—who plays on three songs.^[12]

Bridgers recorded the album sporadically from mid-2018 through late 2019.^[13] The album came together in a sequential order; many songs were recorded in the order they appear on the album.^[18] For the title track, Gruska utilized samples of birds, a Mellotron and a back-masked clip of Bridgers' voice that fade in and out at various points in the song. Bridgers referred to the technique as "riding the faders", which she learned from engineer Joseph Lorge.^[12] Bridgers also continued her practice of double tracking all of her vocals as a tribute to her favorite artist, singer-songwriter Elliott Smith.^[14] In a review, music critic Lindsay Zoladz wrote that the album mixes Bridgers' "arpeggiated guitar work" with "looping synths and eerily groaning strings."^[19]

Themes

Punisher has been described as an indie rock,^[20] emo-folk, and indie folk album.^[21] Lyrically, it tackles themes of "missed connections, the tension between the inner and outer self, [and] the lonely ache of watching things end."^[14] Quinn Moreland of Pitchfork interpreted the LP as born from "languid spells of depression, desire, and self-destruction".^[16]

Bridgers' songwriting ranges from sardonic to sharply honest;^[18] Zoladz observed that Bridgers "weav[es] tiny, specific, time-stamped details (chemtrails, Saltines, serotonin) into durable big-tent tapestries of feeling."^[19] Altogether, the album chronicles Bridgers' personal journey towards therapy and being able to better enjoy life. While Stranger is rooted in trauma, Punisher identifies tools she used to deal with that trauma.^[18]

Punisher was highly anticipated.^[30] The album's first single, "Garden Song", was released on February 26, 2020,^[31] with its follow-up, "Kyoto", seeing release on April 9 of that year.^[32] The album's third single "ICU" (retitled "I See You") was released on May 19, 2020.^[33]

The LP was scheduled for release on June 19^[32]—or Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S.—but Bridgers opted to release it early on digital services on June 18, with an announcement encouraging fans to donate to organizations seeking racial justice.^[34][35] It debuted during a worldwide quarantine related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and amid a period of civil unrest in the U.S., with citizens protesting the murder by police of George Floyd and other people of color. "I'm not [delaying] the record until things go back to 'normal' because I don't think they should," Bridgers wrote on Twitter.^[36]

Touring plans for Punisher were postponed due to the pandemic. Bridgers was scheduled to open for the 1975 on a stadium tour.^[10] Bridgers announced a headlining tour which ran from August 2021 to September 2023, featuring stops in North America, Europe, and Asia.^[37]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	8.4/10[41]
Metacritic	90/100[42]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[43]
The A.V. Club	A−[29]
Consequence of Sound	A−[44]
The Daily Telegraph	[45]
The Independent	[46]
The Line of Best Fit	8/10[47]
NME	[48]
Pitchfork	8.7/10[49]
Rolling Stone	[30]
Slant Magazine	[50]

Close

Punisher received widespread acclaim from music critics. The album has a score of 90 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 31 reviews.^[51]

Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky designated it with the publication's "Best New Music" tag, calling it "marvelous, [...] candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart. Her music has become a world unto itself."^[49] Jonathan Bernstein from Rolling Stone called the work visionary, "eleven expertly rendered, largely downcast songs about broken faith, desperate, occasionally self-destructive love, and tenuous recovery."^[30] NME gave the album a perfect score, writing, "The LA songwriter's ability to paint this lingering feeling of dread so vividly is perhaps the biggest factor in her rapid rise to cultish indie household name; just look at the state of the world right now."^[52]

David Sackllah of Consequence of Sound gave the album an A−, writing "Punisher beams with a restless energy and twisted dream logic that erupts into striking moments of clarity in a way reminiscent of the National's Boxer.^[44] Fred Thomas at AllMusic opined that the LP "reaches new depths [...] It's an album of shockingly self-aware explorations of dark feelings and Bridgers is more willing than ever before to throw herself headlong into the darkness."^[29] Alexandra Pollard from The Independent felt that Bridgers "sharpened and broadened her songwriting" on the album;^[46] New York Times contributor Lindsay Zoladz designated it as a "critic's pick".^[8]

Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, highlighting the songs "ICU" and "Graceland Too" while summarizing the album's merits with the following statement: "If articulated depression is what you crave, does she have lyrical and musical detail for you—philosophical solace or melodic relief, no".^[53]

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

Musicians