Words By Zahra Hanif
Remi Wolf has actively rejected sanitisation throughout her career, with her unfiltered lyrics, full-throated vocals and maximalist approach to pop. Her new album, aptly titled ‘Mud’, is no exception. Her third album comes two years after her last, but possesses a marked maturity as she strips down on sonics to allow her storytelling to take centre stage.
This tonal shift – much heavier than the energising pop of her back-catalogue – was driven by changes in Wolf’s life, as she found herself navigating a breakup and sobriety: “I literally felt like I was covered in shit.”. Throughout the album, we hear her shedding her old skin as she spills herself entirely into the lines in a deeply cathartic way: “At the end of the album process, I feel so clean and clear. It has been a very cleansing record to make for me” – a juxtaposition mirrored by the one on the album artwork, where she’s beaming through the dirt on her face.
The album opens with the single ‘Bottle’, Wolf immediately establishing the mood with an upbeat but dark account of her mental spiral. While the subject matter is heavier, the lyricism is unmistakably Wolf’s, following her conversational, confessional conventions: “I pull up, screw my head on straight / I grew up and I stay the same.” The track sees Wolf pull from country-rock influences, ones which echo down the tracklist in songs like the earworm ‘Burn Me Blue’ and foot-stamper ‘Wine Drunk’.
The album having a focal point makes it Wolf’s most cohesive record yet – unrelentingly devastating, only offering variety in pace as she shifts from deceptively uptempo tracks to slower ballads, but both sharing the same solemn lyrical matter. This mood is amplified with the recruitment of blues legend John Mayer on ‘Moon So High’ – famed for his gut-wrenching compositions. As the sole vocal collaborator on the record, Mayer adds another dimension to Wolf’s yearning, as they mourn lost love together, finding it hard to move on: “If I ain’t got no wings to fly / Why’d you hang the moon so high?”
Wolf purifies herself in ‘Mud’, purging her past in three-minute segments. Her third studio album is a distinct evolution from her past two, swapping out a wider sonic palette to more appropriately complement her cries with more uniform backing instrumentation. What remains, however, is her ever-compelling hook: her personality belted through powerhouse vocals. Her scaled-back production simply allows her to showcase her raw talent and her irrepressible charm even in her darkest hours – “You just miss me / I just miss you / We just missed our exit” – cementing her name as one of contemporary music’s most exciting talents.
Leave a Reply