Chastity Belt - All My Friends (Clear & Green Vinyl)

All My Friends' comprises songs recorded across multiple years, time zones, and studios, including Seahorse Sound in LA, Way Out in Woodinville, and a centuries-old house on the Greek island of Hydra. The oldest track dates back to around 2018; the newest were finished within the past year. These days, the band spans three cities (Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago); less writing/rehearsal time means songs are often worked out in the studio, relying on the spontaneity and instinct that comes from knowing one another so well. The result is rawer and less polished than their last couple of records, closer in spirit to the band's roots.

Songwriting and recording are very real work, but Chastity Belt's studio sessions also carry the celebratory charge of a reunion. On Hydra, they decided to skip the studio for a day in order to take a boat to the far end of the island. Back in LA, a December session produced the inaugural Seahorse Sound Studios Secret Santa: a strict $20 limit, every gift sourced exclusively from a gas station/corner store. Names were guarded with grave seriousness. Ceremonial paper-bag hats were worn. These interludes-shared dinners, charades, watching dumb YouTube videos together-are an integral part of studio time. The more fun they have making a record, the more they like the record. The warmth surrounding the album's making carries into the songs, though rarely without a shadow. As on previous albums, an existential thread weaves throughout the subject matter. 'Happiness is trite / There's so much more to life / Take me on a ride," Shapiro (a master at riding the line between sincerity and dry-humor) sings on "Designs," as each member locks all the way in on a hypnotic, spectral jam that goes long before fading out to a single synth note. Album stand-out 'Pavement' earns it's place in the pantheon of catchy songs about draining oneself of dopamine. Sunny melodies, weightless hooks, and call-and-response backup vocals counterbalance the lyrical premise that sometimes we need to sink all the way into our melancholy because, as Lund puts it, 'down here there's more space to build the muscle of hope.' Holding dualities with care is a band specialty. The languid, hazy sway of 'To Decide' grew from a single line: 'Now that I can rest assured that everything will turn out fine / I've lost my will to decide.' Lund's voice is effortless and clear, gliding over riffs that are at once downcast and luminous. It can be difficult to know whether you are overthinking it, underthinking it, or surrendering your agency by trusting that things will work out. Everything may be fine, she suggests, but you may still have to try to make it fine. 'Friends for This' came from Lund's experience returning home from living abroad after she found herself drifting further from the things she knew to be important. Interlocking guitar lines (Grimm trades drums for lead guitar on this one) glimmer between angst and euphoria before reaching catharsis. 'I've got friends for this / To help me out of this mess,' she belts, before the ominous refrain: 'Always tell your friends the truth.' The album closes with a wink at it's predecessor, the sauntering 'Live Laugh Love,' on which Shapiro sings, 'And when the heaviness starts settling in I'm grateful for all of my friends.' Perhaps the record's thesis in a single line. 'All My Friends' is the product of that philosophy-an album with themes of uncertainty, made within an unusually dependable haven. Chastity Belt may not know what any given adulthood is supposed to look like, but six albums in, they've built a life around returning to one another. There are worse ways to get your shit together.