Phoebe Bridgers – Stranger in the Alps

Review Score:

A

The Unprecedented Times –

May 24 / 2023

In late 2017, I stopped into Revolver Records in Buffalo, NY. I had no business being in a record store. I didn’t even own a record player at the time. I was 17 years old and was trying to be someone I wasn’t. I walked to a bin of $5.00 CDs and pulled one out. A semi-crude ghost was painted over the evocative scene that graced the cover. I bought it. The sole employee said I was in for something special. These people always seem to have intimate knowledge of every album in existence.

Fast forward a year. I was on a swing set at 2:00 AM with a new friend. It was late autumn and I was a college freshman in the middle of Ohio. He referenced a line from Stranger in the Alps during one of our many self-loathing, melancholic conversations. I replied, surprised at such a reference, “Phoebe Bridgers?” And he replied with equal surprise, “You know about Phoebe Bridgers?” He had found her through Bandcamp, I through a blind CD purchase. This seems quaint in 2023, where Bridgers has skyrocketed to the forefront of indie stardom. She tours with the likes of Taylor Swift. She is Grammy nominated. She is as close to a household name as someone in indie-adjacency can be. But back then, you have to understand that she was still something of a cult figure. 

So imagine my reaction to a blind listen to Stranger in the Alps. I was going off of nothing but the album cover when I popped the CD into my 2007 Toyota sedan and drove. 

I wish everyone could experience Stranger in the Alps this way. 

Phoebe Bridgers’ first album is a haunting listen. Her voice glides across these beautifully produced indie-folk arrangements. “Smoke Signals” is a striking opener with its thick, heavy bassline. The strings enter and exit with grace. The echoing snare is so subtle that you might lose it had the song failed to capture your attention the way it does. “Motion Sickness”, the next song on the album, picks up the pace, but just enough to not lose the thread. The lyrics are wistful yet triumphant and self-assured. 

Bridgers’ has a habit of dropping hyper specific lines about her personal experiences. It was developed here and mastered on Punisher. What I imagine is a very cathartic experience for her has clearly become a writing inspiration for many a rising indie star, as her signature brutal honesty has bled into a hundred of like-minded up and comers, for better or worse. 

“Funeral” explores mortality, as Phoebe narrates her thoughts following the death of a young man. The opening line “I’m singing at a funeral tomorrow for a kid a year older than me” is so subtly genius. It’s moments like this when Phoebe’s lyricism shines. That line resonates with anyone who applies it to themselves, and it will be striking at any age. 

“Scott Street” is my favorite song on Stranger in the Alps (and possibly of Phoebe’s entire discography). Co-written by her drummer and longtime collaborator Marshall Vore, “Scott Street” is conversational and reflective at once. It perfectly captures the kind of bittersweet feeling that comes with running into someone you once knew so well. 

“You Missed My Heart” is a cover of Jimmy LeValle and Mark Kozelek’s original song. The choice to include it on the album was a necessity to Phoebe Bridgers, who said that it resonated with her to such a degree that she had to make it her own.

Bridgers’ ability to blend the personal with the poetic is indisputably impressive. She paints visceral pictures with her words; descriptions as evocative as the ghostly cover that first caught my eye all those years ago. Stranger in the Alps feels like a turning point for Phoebe’s pocket of the indie genre. This is the template now. But nobody does it better than Bridgers.

Review Score:

A