Mud

As <b>Remi Wolf</b> faced making her third album, <i>Mud</i>, she was not in a good headspace, recovering from a bad breakup and continuing to struggle with alcohol. The first lines of the slinky leadoff jam <b>“Bottle”</b> are, fittingly, “Circling the drain/Mercy morning rain/A penny in the parking lot/Pretend it’s lucky, but I know it’s not.” <i>Mud</i> finds the alternative-pop-country-rock-soul singer confronting her delusions, writing love songs about a person she knows she shouldn’t be with. Tracks that initially feel like rom-coms reveal themselves to be horror flicks by the time Wolf reaches the bridge. On <b>“Twiggy”</b>, she starts crushed out, mooning over a heart-shaped birthmark and skinny-dipping in a stranger’s swimming pool; by the end she’s calling out mommy issues and a history of recklessness before declaring, “God, I fucking hate you.” In the late 2010s, Wolf introduced herself to the world by revelling in her quirkiness, combining hilarious stream-of-consciousness lyrics with maximalist mismatched aesthetics. Now newly 30 years old, she’s embraced her natural messiness. Her outfits are still out of this world, but she’s unafraid of her humanity, laying herself bare in the lyrics and belting her broken heart out. Wolf created much of <i>Mud</i> surrounded by close collaborators who feel like family, living and recording together in Airbnbs around California. (She also pulled in new friend <b>John Mayer</b>, who swings by to charm his way through <b>“Moon So High”</b>.) In the end, she emerged from the emotional muck feeling cleansed. As the saying goes, “Sometimes the only way out is through.”