Consumer Guide Album

Lucy Dacus: Home Video [Matador, 2021]
Having slotted Dacus as a don't-get-her rather than can't-stand-her, I liked this one so much I checked back to No Burden and Historian, both of which I'd found too static, and decided there'd been more there than I'd thought, although Historian opener "Night Shift," for instance, is a great song only if ones that don't move much count. Without once rocking out, album three definitely moves. From "Hot and Heavy"'s basement dalliance with a gem who only got brighter to "Please Stay"'s "Quit your job, cut your hair, get a dog" suicide watch, these verbally and musically detailed reminiscences of an alienated ex-Christian get me going. As a committed backslider who knows "VBS" stands for Vacation Bible School, I find her religious apostasy especially useful and poignant. But "Thumbs," in which she clutches the hand of the friend/lover who's face-to-face with her dad for the first time since fifth grade, is also pretty intense. And there's more. A-