There Will Be No Intermission

isn't one for small gestures. Ever since her early days in the punky , the singer/songwriter favored grand theatricality, but that tendency reaches its full flower on , her third album and first solo effort since 2012's . didn't keep quiet in the interim between these two records -- collaborations in particular abounded -- but given this is her first set of songs in seven years, it would seem this would be a clearinghouse of long-festering ideas. Instead, is attuned to the moment, an album that attempts to sort through the chaos of 2019, particularly the reckoning engendered by the rise of #MeToo. views all this turmoil through an individualized perspective that isn't especially restrictive. Operating from the assumption that her personal observations carry universal wisdom, writes with proud pomp and circumstance, puffing up two songs past ten minutes ("The Ride," "A Mother's Confession"), but never dipping below the five-minute mark. Fleeting instrumental interludes function as palate cleansers between these opuses, which are often anchored in her piano and voice. Even when the arrangements are heightened, as they are with a conventional rock band on "Drowning in the Sound" or strings on "Voicemail for Jill," the album is designed to make the listener lean into 's elliptical verses. Abandoning sculpted hooks for rambling poetry is a canny move by : it forces attention on the lyrics, since the rest of the record feels deliberately amelodic, with the emotional payoffs arriving via surging crescendos. As such, is an album designed to demand attention, even if it doesn't necessarily command it -- it's too obtuse and willful for that. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine