Breakups are tough to get through, but I can’t help but feel a little bad for whomever this album is about. Woolbright’s dense, guitar-heavy compositions foreground lyrics that deliver a series of burns of the highest order. If you’ve ever dumped somebody, you won’t get through this album without feeling guilty about it, no matter how long ago it’s been. And, of course, if you’ve ever been dumped, this is an album that will give you that sense of elation that true solidarity engenders.
To be clear, when Busybody Lazybones first crossed my path I had just been dumped. “What’s It Gonna Be” shined like a beacon to me after many, many, many processing conversations about whether or not we should try to make it work:
I’ve realized you’re better off at a distance
I’ve compromised my health and need to resist this
You had your motives and I had mine and
I’m heavy hearted when you cross my eyes
Pay no mind
Please pay no mind to me
Stay back stay back
Please don’t attach
I am not choosing this
Stay back stay back
Please don’t attach
I am not choosing this
You had a way of crawling back to stay
But not this time
No not this time
Four months and a rigorous, consistent workout schedule later, I’m happy to say I don’t need to lean on this album quite as hard as I did the first time I listened to it. However, it’s worth multiple listens. While Woolbright clearly draws a lot of influence from post-punk and grunge, they’re not afraid to dive into more experimental compositions that confidently upend the familiar and viscerally translate the lyrics’ anxiety to the listener’s experience.
Woolbright — Facebook, Bandcamp
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