Phoebe Bridgers ‘Lost Weekend’ review: an ambitious return that dissects love and loss with superb precision
The beloved singer and songwriter reemerges into the spotlight with an ambitious album that finds her exploring new ground to exhilarating effect
In the years leading up to new album Lost Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers did what seems nigh-on impossible for a 2020s pop star: she totally disappeared. The singer and songwriter’s retreat from the public eye came after a period of the complete opposite. Between releasing the era-defining Punisher in 2020, a balm for millions through Covid lockdowns across the world, and becoming an arena star as one third of the supergroup boygenius, Bridgers became the undoubted poster girl for a generation of alternative music fans.
Despite that, on the first line of Lost Weekend, she’s “crying in a suit and tie”, her go-to onstage attire for the years that saw her become a superstar.
Much of Lost Weekend ruminates on the impact of this transformational but exhausting period in Bridgers’ life, as well as the parent she lost and the love she found between the release of Punisher and now.
In her devastating signature style, Bridgers delivers these reflections through intensely specific anecdotes that are told with such precision that you feel compelled to transport yourself into the middle of them. “I was the belle of the Governor’s Ball,” she sings on ‘The Governor’s Waltz’ of the New York City festival she played in 2021, “hiding in the bathroom like Shelley Duvall”.
Elsewhere, the album’s bombastic lead single ‘Lost Boys’ sees her recount “that one time in East Berlin / When you threw a tantrum with a 57 (microphone) and broke a rib”. Set to feel right at home on a forthcoming sold-out arena tour, the song feels like quintessential Bridgers. “This machine is killing me,” sings the artist who trailed Lost Weekend by playing strictly phone-free shows across the US. To have no footage leak online is testament not only to the security at the venue but to her fans’ devotion.
If her years in arenas gave her power as well as problems, it’s shown best on the enormous ‘Bobby’, Bridgers’ punchiest and most anthemic song to date. “This could be the end of wanting,” she sings on a love song that explodes out of the speakers in technicolour.
Punctuated by interludes inspired by Bridgers’ love of ambient music, Lost Weekend is also her most sonically ambitious work to date. The album’s stunning title track gives her forthright vocals (“I’m supposed to be married but I called it off”) ample space behind swirling drones before the introduction of hard-hitting synthetic drums, while other tracks dip into country (‘Haunted’), vocoder-heavy minimalism (‘The Outside’) and gorgeous balladry (‘I Can’t Wait’). Elsewhere, the seemingly straightforward indie-rock track ‘Liberty Tree’ dissolves without warning into an outro of hauntingly low ambient noise, while ‘Never Going Back!’ ends with a banjo instrumental played over a devastating voicemail left for Bridgers by her late father: “Hey, Phoebe, it’s your dad! I know you’re busy… being a rock star takes up a lot of your time, I’m guessing…”
It’s the most crushing of countless revealing moments on an album that both fills in the gaps from Bridgers’ time away from the spotlight and pushes her forwards in thrilling new directions. As if singing to herself in the middle of her retreat from public life, closer ‘Lost Weekend (Reprise)’ sees Bridgers remark: “If I ever come out of hiding / You won’t have to know how to find me again.” For the singer of a generation, it was more than worth the wait – the wait was the whole point.