The title of Bodywash‘s new record, I Held the Shape While I Could, is a perfect summary of how it feels to be barely holding your life together and then finally, sometimes blissfully, being able to drop that façade when you’re alone and just cry your eyes out.
The record was made as both Rosie Long Decter and Chris Steward were coming out points in their lives that had resulted in dissatisfaction, alienation, boredom, and heartbreak. Opening track “In As Far” sets up a major theme of the album (breaking through ennui by being willing to face it head-on) with Steward’s synths that burst open like the sun through clouds. “Picture Of” has Decter reminiscing about a past lover and how sometimes the memory is better than the relationship truly was (“You were hard to believe, asking everything close. You were hard to prove. Something to see and not know.” / “I decide to lie and wait, picture of desire in a frame.”)
“Massif Central” is Steward’s buzzing shoegaze tale of losing his Canadian work status in 2020 due to a typographical error, thus leaving him alienated and unemployed just as we were all hearing the early warnings of the pandemic. “Bas Relief” is an instrumental, sounding like ocean waves and wind and some kind of early 1990s mall music tape that’s been left near a space heater.
Steward sings about trying to fit in as half-Japanese, half-British (“To feel half is not to feel whole.”) and Canadian. “Kind of Light” is about Decter trying to fit in after after the end of a relationship while others are enjoying love around her (“Pull back all the ways you count her gone. Spend a year living trying to hold yourself to a certain kind of light.”)
“One Day Clear” is almost a spoken word piece as Decter tells a lonely tale and Steward plays simple, hypnotic, looping synths behind her. “Sterilizer” is a tale full of bright shoegaze guitars while discussing the idea trying to make a relationship work, but knowing, in your heart, that, while it feels good now, it’s probably going to make both of you bitter in the long run (“We talk inside of swallowed pride, still I warm your sleep tonight.”).
“Dessents” floats right into the snappy, electro-thumping “Ascents” – which is a lovely song about Decter and Steward’s friendship forged even harder during their long drives to gigs while working out their relationship woes. The shimmering sound and wispy vocals on “Patina” (another song about moving past an ended relationship) remind one of some Besnard Lakes tracks, which isn’t surprising when you consider that Jace Lasek from The Besnard Lakes recorded and mixed the album.
Decter is at least in the process of healing by the time we get to “No Repair.” Her vocals are a bit melancholy, but her voice doesn’t seem to be carrying as much weight, and the instrumentation behind her helps rejuvenate her and us. Lyrics like “And sometimes when I’m quiet and alone, I need no repair. If this is as far as it goes, write it in handfuls of air. You were there.”
That’s a lovely lyric to end a lovely album.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]
