SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: TIGERS JAW – LOST ON YOU

TIGERS JAW 
LOST ON YOU 
HOPELESS RECORDS

Tigers Jaw sound has always felt like a soft reawakening, a breath that one takes before admitting something that you’ve kept hidden away in the dark, avoiding what might surface if you bring it to light. Such fragility and forwardness are brought to the forefront on their new album, Lost On You. With Lost On You, Tigers Jaw returns with something that feels familiar yet subtly transformative. While I Won’t Care How You Remember Me was, instrumentally, a reconciliation between their formative roots and 2017’s Spin, this cathartic pursuit of understanding themselves continues to unfold in this new chapter, outlining a picture of longing, disorientation, and the slow, unglamorous work of finding oneself again after being lost. Emotionally distilled, Lost On You is not looking to be louder or grander; instead, Tigers Jaw sharpens their incisors and delivers something quietly sharp. Where their whispers cut deeper than any loud octave of a scream ever could.

From the beginning, Tigers Jaw immediately places the listener in the thick of the internal turbulence with “It’s Ok,” “Primary Colors,” and “Head is Like a Sinking Stone.” Drifting, searching, and softly breaking, Lost on You makes it clear early on that this album will be built on emotional shifts, not the kind that are readily visible on the surface, but like fog that starts to accumulate in the wake of a rainstorm. Through its use of dualistic vocals set against the hushed, dreamy edges of progressive indie and melodic mathy instrumental textures, there is a sense of quiet unraveling that will continue to unfold throughout the record.

Tigers Jaw has never been one to be overly dramatic or emotionally pushy in their delivery, and within Lost on You, moments like “Anxious Blade,” “Baptized on a Redwood Drive,” and “BREEZER” make a point to show the slow erosion that happens when one tries to hold themselves together while everything else is falling apart around them. With lyrics that sound like wet pages torn out of a journal left out in the rain, Tigers Jaw gives listeners something smudged, imperfect, vulnerable, and painfully honest.
What continues to make each of these tracks so impactful is the vocal delivery between its two distinct vocalists. Written in a way that feels like it’s coming from two different perspectives, yet the pain is coming from one wound. The interplay between Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins is one of the biggest strengths on the record. Their voices feel more in sync and internally intertwined than ever before, and songs like “Ghost,” the highlight track “Staring at Empty Faces,” and “Light Leaks Through” demonstrate the melodic, tag-team-style exchange between these two that has been built into each track. While Walsh breathes clarity into pain that has been lived in for too long, Collins brings a soft, aching glow of someone trying to pick up the pieces left behind by that pain.

Lost on You’s closing tracks, “Roses + Thorns” and “Lost on You,” end the album gorgeously, musically showing the sweet spot the band continues to thrive in after years of perfecting this sound. An instrumental ballet of indie dress, emo bones, dreamy pop haze, and warm percussive heartbeats, Tigers Jaw artfully delivers a new kind of softness here. There is a deliberate willingness to let each song breathe and let the listener take in the pain, then detox from it, rather than pushing the listener toward catharsis. Shimmering guitars, pulsing drums, and distant synths serve as the headlights in the foggy drive toward internal enlightenment and external self-actualization, creating an album that is deeply felt, with an understated elegance in their sound that, for the most part, brings about some of Tigers Jaw’s most beautiful work in years. While some will be quick to say this album borders on “too safe,” others will appreciate its less intense approach and its use of edge in a different context. Sometimes, edge doesn’t have to rely solely on instrumental gravitas but rather on being open and daring in what one chooses to express, under the guise of a nostalgic bite and flashes of intensity that make up Lost on You’s emotional architecture.

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