Album art by Scott Siskind
Style: art rock, progressive rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Radiohead, Steven Wilson, The Dear Hunter, Björk
Country: USA (Massachusetts)
Release date: 30 August 2024
By all rights, I shouldn’t be writing this review. This is for two reasons—one, we currently only cover bands with a sufficiently small Spotify monthly listener count here at the Subway, and a band with Bent Knee‘s discography and level of esteem in the prog scene should, in any just world, be well above that threshold. Two, though, is that I’m somewhat surprised that this album exists at all. When last we heard from Bent Knee, they were reeling from the departure of longtime members Ben Levin and Jessica Kion, major creative forces within the band that would prove impossible to replace. Not only that, but they had just come off of releasing Frosting, a creatively-confused mess of an album whose experimentations in hyperpop yielded… mixed results at best. And yet, despite the odds against them, the band soldiered on as a four-piece: rearranging old music, picking up new instruments, and roaring back with a brand-new opus that grapples with the anxieties and coping mechanisms that come with life’s irreversible changes.
With the new, stripped-down version of Bent Knee, their sound has evolved to perhaps its most accessible iteration yet. Don’t get me wrong—they’re still as intriguingly uncategorizable as ever with their mix of In Rainbows-esque electronic art rock, propulsive funk-adjacent grooves, layered symphonic strings, and soft, vulnerable balladry. But the abrasive, experimental edges that characterized much of their previous work are decidedly less evident here; there are no unhinged vocal wails, no walls of noise or imposing dissonances. Still, their more offbeat sensibilities haven’t been abandoned so much as mixed smoothly and unobtrusively into their sound, like a shot of harsh vodka blended seamlessly into a delicious cocktail. Courtney Swain may not screech all the way up to the absolute peaks of her vocal range anymore, but her signature agility is still ever-present, and when she does go for the high notes, like in proper opener “Forest”, they radiate clarity, intentionality, and raw power. The instrumentals follow, with ideas like the dissonant quirky riff to “Illiterate” being folded into taut, elastic grooves and the more abstract bits of sound design being relegated to brief, palate-cleansing interludes like “Comet” or the instrumental bookends “Enter” and “Exit”. They’ve put the songs first here, and it pays off in dividends.
Part of what makes Twenty Pills so accessible is that, perhaps more than any other Bent Knee album thus far, it has bops. Sure, they’re no strangers to playfulness (as anyone who’s attended one of their live shows can attest), but seldom has their music exuded as much sass and energy as some of the tracks on here. I’ve already mentioned “Illiterate”, but it’s probably the clearest demonstration of how much fun the band is having, with its snappy alternating short-long phrases punctuated by bass slides and tight percussion from the ever-reliable Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth. There’s also “I Like It”, which ratchets up from burbling, understated synths to a riotous, sensual jam overloaded with strings, or the absolutely genius switchup in tempo midway through “DLWTSB”. My personal favorite, though, is “Never Coming Home”, with an excellent bassline that pops out of the mix and makes it absurdly danceable, to the point where my head involuntarily bobs along to the beat every time it comes on. Lyrically, it feels like the heart of the album’s themes, with the motif of “never coming home” appearing in multiple other songs, each time finding a different emotional facet of the notion that things will never be quite the way they were. Combine that with its earworm of a hook and the intricate sonic layers beneath the surface that seem to reveal new facets with every listen, and it’s safe to say we’ve got one of the best songs of the year.
Still, at their core, beneath all the fun and quirky vibes, perhaps Bent Knee‘s greatest strength has always been taking the listener’s heart and ripping it straight out of their goddamn chest. That too is on full display here—Twenty Pills is, I would argue, the band’s most powerfully heartwrenching work since their 2014 masterpiece Shiny Eyed Babies. But said emotionality takes on a wholly different flavor here; while Shiny Eyed Babies was a barely restrained scream into the void from behind gritted teeth, this time around the sadness feels more mature and tempered—the melancholy, teary-eyed sigh of a grown adult looking back on what could have been and what can no longer be. Take “Big Bagel Manifesto”, a hauntingly gorgeous triumph of sonic engineering and dynamic buildup that says more with its lyric-adjacent nonsense than words ever could. Or “Drowning”, six and a half minutes of pure heartache distilled into a delirious, weightless waltz with some of the most striking lyrics on the record. “Lawnmower”, meanwhile, starts as a hushed, Phoebe Bridgers-influenced ode to tranquil country life, but it becomes apparent that said tranquility is an attempt to rebuild from a deeply painful loss as noisy guitars crash their way in, with Swain belting out how she’s “never moving on”. Even the more energetic tunes have a deep vein of melancholy running through them, their vibrant grooves coming off as coping mechanisms to stave off feelings of emptiness, whether that takes the form of sex, TV, or aimless nighttime drives.
Of course, this album isn’t quite perfect. While the goofy mid-album country tune “Cowboy” has grown on me slightly with its uncanny production that makes it sound like said cowboy is being sucked into some eldritch void, it still feels like a pointless throwaway piece that accidentally made it off the cutting room floor. The pacing, too, begins to flag towards the back half of the album; while “Drowning” and “Lawnmower” are both gorgeous ballads on an individual level, placing them back to back makes for ten straight minutes of lower-energy music that only ends with the latter’s loud outro, and it starts to feel like a bit of a drag. Putting another uptempo track between the two would have done a great deal to keep the album flowing more smoothly.
Regardless of these nitpicks, it’s hard to see Twenty Pills Without Water as anything less than a brilliant comeback, and one of the best albums in Bent Knee‘s discography. In (non-outro) closer “DLWTSB” (short for “Detroit Lions Win the Super Bowl”), the lyrics reflect on being a fan of a losing sports team, sticking with them through their worst moments and hoping against hope that today will be the day they’ll turn things around, even though logically you know it probably won’t. In its own way, it sends a message of hope—the good things in life may be impermanent, but so too are our low points. Things may not get better today, or even tomorrow, but this too shall someday pass, and for now, all you can do is cheer your heart out. Eventually, that team will snap its losing streak, the pain of losing a loved one will fade, and an embattled four-piece art rock band will, it turns out, roar back with something truly special. The greatest narrative, indeed.
Recommended tracks: Illiterate, Big Bagel Manifesto, Never Coming Home, Drowning
You may also like: Meer, Ophelia Sullivan, i Häxa, Marjana Semkina
Final verdict: 8.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Take This to Heart Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Bent Knee is:
– Courtney Swain (lead vocals, keyboards, bass)
– Chris Baum (violin, guitars, backing vocals)
– Vince Welch (guitars, bass, synth, production)
– Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth (drums, vocals and acoustic guitar on “Cowboy”)
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