Oh my God – That's me

From the same school of slick disco that swings with Arthur Russell's poppiest moments, “Check Your Face” romances common sense—Wilkins urges it to “interpret me reasoning”—and it comes on so hard that there's a good chance this would-be seducer has little understanding of the true object of her affections. He speaks subtly and plainly about how concepts like common sense, limits and bandwidths have become buzzwords, but also finds the delusion of trying to definitively achieve them appealing, as the cooler bass contrasts with Wilkins' over-the-top growl. . The dreamy “Oh Minutiae” comes at the worship sentiment from a different angle, a waltz song played on what sounds like a cheap keyboard about the tiny rewards that exist in the world around you: algae, “funny-looking oak leaves” , the “snowflakes and cornflakes” of a Norwegian winter. “They say the devil's in the details,” Wilkins sings, coining another great, spontaneous aphorism: “I think it's just a phrase… Not all good things have the name of the saints”.

These funny, strange, tender songs are heard in a softer light than Wilkins' previous albums, and not just the unsettling UNDERMINE. Some may bemoan the lack of spooky behavior Oh my Godbut her expert singing, her enveloping melodies and her mood are confident and captivating—recalling Marry meThe St. Vincent of the era and the unusual of Cate Le Bon of the latter days—and not short on unusual details. Opener “The Wannabe” is straight-up exciting, bluesy neo-soul that never falls into pastiche, because the sensuality Wilkins craves isn't pure carnality but basic human feeling: “I'm not a sculpture,” he sings. “I'll take the disappointments/Just let me back into my body again.” “Help, I've been framed!” he laments the butterfly's resentment of being misunderstood with tongue-in-cheek humor—”Stuck on my hind legs/Speak in tongues I never knew”—and tactile, rehumanizing beauty: jingles like smashed jars, soulful drum passages, gently climbing chords.

The fragility of it all is underpinned by the potential destruction lurking around the edges. “My Berenice,” a story of obsession and separation, is suspiciously pure and tender until the ending erupts in hysteria: “They say you dig your own grave,” Wilkins sings, building to a pique, “but I dug him too hers. .” A cover of Shirley Collins' 1960 song “Space girl” (subtitled “(Shirley's)”) is a prophetic story of a girl acting against her best interests, told through her mother's warning against the dangerous lure of space technology. It ends with Wilkins screaming in pained voice against shrill, bull-headed guitar. “And I Have a Blessed Life” is a lingering dirge of gratitude stuck between the invocations of terror and seismic bass. “Life is Nietzsche on the beach/And then you die,” Wilkins sings on one ecstatic conclusion.