Now two years wiser, Bognanno has returned with the follow up, and her Sub Pop debut, Losing - an album even more focused and emphatic than its predecessor.
Losing is another great piece of work, agile in its incessant infection and displaying more confidence and control than its predecessor.
Growing up is hard but Bully make it sound exhilarating.
Even at that short running time, Losing’s 12 songs start to blur together toward the end, but the album’s many charms keep that from becoming a liability.
The band’s second album, Losing, is grimier and less sugar-slick than their 2015 debut, Feels Like, where songs like “Trying” and “Milkman” offered hooks so punchy they bordered on pop-punk. Here, by contrast, Bognanno seems frozen in the moment where she’s poised to jump but hasn’t left the ground yet, tensed and ready to strike as she sings out the snags in her interpersonal malaise.
The band might not have developed their sound, but they have made their feelings more explicit.
Losing adjusts the pace of the chase while adding in more decorations, some that move from the background to forefront and help flip the beauty from fleeting to persistent.
There’s nothing inherently bad about anything on Losing, but nothing’s going to stick around, either. It’s also not enough to say that those who don’t remember the Nineties are the record’s intended audience, so originality doesn’t matter as much. That’s insulting to both band and listener.
1 | Feel the Same 1:59 | 80 |
2 | Kills to Be Resistant 3:25 | 80 |
3 | Running 3:41 | 80 |
4 | Seeing It 3:31 | 83 |
5 | Guess There 3:00 | 80 |
6 | Blame 3:23 | 83 |
7 | Focused 4:30 | 78 |
8 | Not the Way 2:35 | 85 |
9 | Spiral 2:31 | 83 |
10 | Either Way 2:17 | 83 |
11 | You Could Be Wrong 2:42 | 80 |
12 | Hate and Control 4:13 | 78 |
#20 | / | The Alternative |