Designed like a mixtape – cheeky Britpop brushing against campfire sarcasm and gothy surf – Bought to Rot is more casual than Laura Jane Grace’s records with Against Me!, the storied Florida punk band she has fronted for 20 years. She wrote it on the road with drummer Atom Willard and bassist Mark Jacob Hudson, working in a more immediate fashion than usual. The lighter touch might offer anyone deterred by her heavier material a welcoming introduction to this ironclad songwriter. Once love takes, it’s a salve against society’s collapse: “I’m on top of the world at the end of the world with you,” she sings on Apocalypse Now (& Later), interweaving nihilism and tenderness into an endearingly catchy ramshackle song of romance. There are few like her.

Source: The Guardian November 09, 2018 10:30 UTC