What happens when you’re past your lowest point? When things are looking up, but there are no heights you want to reach? Questions like these permeate »My Light, My Destroyer«, the newest album by Cassandra Jenkins. In 2021, on »An Overview on Phenomenal Nature«, the art-pop songwriter sketched milieus marked by pseudo-intellectualism and depressive rigor. Three years later, »My Light, My Destroyer« documents movement. »Devotion« opens the album towards familiar melancholy: breathy vocals, soft guitars, gingerly wisping synths. Jenkins appears as a ruined artist. Yet, she insists: » Don’t mistake my breaking open for being broken.«
Follow-up »Clam’s Casino« ups the ante. It’s a conventional Indie song. Marked by an easy-to-grasp beat, a catchy refrain, and lyrical call-backs, it’s tailor made to sing along. Has Jenkins changed her style on »My Light, My Destroyer« for commercial reasons? No. The next piece already juxtaposes Ambient with Sprechgesang. Cassandra Jenkins plays expectations like a fiddle. »My Light, My Destroyer« feels like a concept album, where even the smallest decision was taken consciously. Those plagued by atrabiliousness (and, let’s be real, being pretentious) might find a hopeful companion in it. It lets it be known that you can’t have a collapse without cracking up crusted structures.
