“Thought that if I put you first enough / we would last for sure,” Giveon laments, with neat wordplay, in a vintage-style soul ballad complete with strings and electric sitar. The reminiscences quickly lead into recriminations over “six years gone down the drain,” and none of the retro trappings cushion the pain.
Moses Sumney has revamped “Hey Girl,” a slow-jam come-on from his 2024 album “Sophcore,” to make it more gender-fluid by handing over verses to guests. Syd teases, “You say you ain’t done this before,” and Meshell Ndegeocello moves evolutionary goal posts, intoning, “I am not a woman, I am not a man / I am a water- and carbon-based life form you’ll never comprehend.’
Coi Leray is equal parts tearful and enraged in “Keep It,” her indictment of a cheater: “Should’ve kept it real but you were fraudulent / Everything you said you did the opposite.” Her only accompaniment is calm piano chords and wisps of her own voice.
What happens to a relationship that survives a betrayal? Blaine Teppema, the songwriter for the Chicago duo Sleeper’s Bell, captures the lingering wounds, self-doubt and distrust in “Bad Word” from the new album “Clover.”
Her voice is breathy and tentative over modestly strummed acoustic guitar and drums, as she sings “We got right back together / Now you treat her name like a bad word.” For the moment, she’s willing to go along. “One day I might know what it is you think,” she shrugs. “Till then I’ll laugh it off.”
Katie Crutchfield, the songwriter behind Waxahatchee, rarely escapes ambivalence.
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