Phoebe Bridgers – Lost Weekend (Rogue Planet vinyl, 2LP)

Lost Weekend is the first Phoebe Bridgers album since her multi-GRAMMY nominated sophomore album, Punisher, was released at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Much was made of Bridgers’ wise-for-her-years virtuosity when her lauded debut, Stranger in the Alps was released, about a month after the artist’s 23rd birthday; and Punisher was, it seems, universally praised as something of a promise-made-good-on, a clever, alluring, measured yet thrilling, ultimately very memorable album from an artist whose meteoric talent as a songwriter had been suddenly matched by her road-honed band and their richer, more daring accompaniment. But anyone queuing up Lost Weekend can expect to discover something more remarkable still – Bridgers is at the height of her powers, a master, taking nothing more seriously than this craft, refining here many of the motifs that distinguished her work previously on this new album that’s otherwise, everywhere, full of surprises.