Laura Jane Grace "Stay Alive (Polyvinyl)"
Like all of us, Laura Jane Grace was spending the pandemic figuring out what in the world she was supposed to be doing with her time. She had an entire album’s worth of Against Me! song just waiting to be recorded – but that sure didn’t seem like it was going to be able to happen anytime soon. So she decided instead to record the album solo, as she had been playing them at home, at Steve Albini’s s Chicago studio. The result is an intimate sound – but no less powerful and emotional and raw and sad and angry and scared and joyful and… you know – we’ve all had a lot of emotions lately. But don’t think this means this an album of acoustic demos (yeah right, like Albini was gonna let that fly.) Stay Alive(Polyvinyl) has drum machines, electric guitars– everything you’d expect to find on a rock album–there’s just less of them. They feel like the best home recordings imaginable. Take, for instance, the full sound of “SuperNatural Possession.”