Phoebe Bridgers Is Not Afraid: 'Lost Weekend' Album Review

Written by Claire Hookstra

Photo by Olof Grind. Courtesy of Spotify

“Crying in a suit and tie / But you should see the other guy,” sings Phoebe Bridgers, masked by a vocoder, breaking through chaotic static. Within just the first few seconds of the opening track, Bridgers immediately establishes the distant, entrancing, and celestial world of Lost Weekend. 

After taking a six-year break from releasing solo music, indie rockstar Phoebe Bridgers has created her most cohesive, most melancholic, and most impassioned work yet with the highly anticipated third record, Lost Weekend. The record presents a new sound, mixing atmospheric sonic qualities with folksy guitars and classical piano melodies, resulting in an infectious and cacophonous production style reminiscent of both Stranger In The Alps and Punisher combined. The record thematically centers itself around navigating loss, but it hones in on several aspects of the artists' past. Rather than one continuous story of a specific year or a detailed relationship, Lost Weekend sounds like a distant dream, a recollection of moments from the past that still haunt, still comfort, and still ruminate in your mind.

The lyrics of the record are full of intersecting ideas that only a mind like Bridgers could find a way to combine. The sometimes confusing, sometimes rewarding coexistence of loss and love intertwines with explanations of her complicated relationship with her late father, a love song for her friends, highly introspective revelations from a plane, and bluegrass twang mixed with planetary hums. 

“The Outside” is the ascent into the celestial nature of Lost Weekend. Here, Bridgers observes her tendency to view life from an outside perspective: “I’m frozen in place / But I am not afraid.” The distortion in her voice clears before the chorus, where her classic hushed tone sings over twinkling piano. The outro has swelling, blooming strings and euphoric piano backing Bridgers’ harmonies, shocking the mind of the listener before it reaches a still silence. This serves as the most fitting introduction to the thoughts and feelings Bridgers is letting the world listen in to. 

While Lost Weekend is ultimately stricken by grief following the passing of Bridgers’ father in 2023, there are moments of hope spread throughout the 53 minutes in tracks like “Bobby,” an ode to her current partner and collaborator Bo Burnham, and “Haunted,” a folk ballad about finding ways to be alive while living with sadness. “This could be the end of wanting,” she sings with an enthusiastic power in “Bobby,” a tone of voice we seldom hear in her older works. Unlike her past albums, here Bridgers cuts through the sadness and balances out the darkness of the record with brief glimmers of hope.

The comforting melancholy that’s found in Bridgers’ past work is prevalent, but it is seen from a new point of view in terms of sound. Honing in on the complexities of grief, “Still Standing” tells of Bridgers’ complicated relationship with her late father, mourning the loss but remembering the pain of her past. Bridgers describes the emotional phenomenon with such honesty and relatability that it speaks to all who have had to navigate through loss. “And now there is nothing / Your back to the ocean, burning red / I can’t imagine you dead / But you are every day,” she sings in “Lost Weekend.” It’s blunt but effective, somehow warm, and overwhelmingly haunting. After the slow pace of the body of the song, “Lost Weekend” breaks out into intergalactic-sounding synths over a shaky, rapid breath, translating the internal feeling of spiraling out into a sonic experience. 

A twist on grief, "Never Going Back!" features a bluegrass symphony of instruments as Bridgers sings repeatedly, "Never going back again / The way it was is not the way that it is." While singing it with a certain joy in her voice, the phrase can be viewed positively and negatively, depending on the interpretation. At the end of the track, a voicemail from Bridgers' late father plays, a stark contrast to the rather uplifting tone of voice mentioned before, bringing the track back to the ground. Sometimes it's good that things aren't the way they used to be, and sometimes you want nothing more than for life to go back to how it was.

Switching the focus to complicated romance, “Kill Me” is a grounded ballad surrounding ideas of the fragility and vulnerability of falling in love, full of lust in the moment but pausing to think, “This is gonna kill me.” A perfect example of this new sound for Bridgers, the latter quarter of the song consists of squeaking electric guitar lines and bountiful synth work behind her chanting “Let’s go missing” and Cameron Winter (credited as Son-John Johnson on the album credits) chanting lowly with her the Persian phrase “Tamám Shud” (It is finished). "The Governor's Waltz" sounds like a sweet ballad, but lyrically it reflects on the outcomes of a fading romance, losing your sense of self and the love you once had for someone else.

The most emotional and climactic song of the record is undoubtedly “As Above,” painting a picture of the uneasy and existential feelings that can develop on an airplane. In a moment of outcry, Bridgers sings with a full chest, as if the weight of the world is on her shoulders, “You won’t have to believe in magic / Leave it to me, and I’ll make it happen,” as the instrumentals swell chaotically behind her indelible vocals. "As it was, so it goes," she whispers as the track comes to an end.

“Lost Weekend (Reprise),” recorded as a voice memo on Bridgers’ iPhone, is a simple, emotional tune that truly concludes the experience of Lost Weekend. Featuring a steady synth line and Bridgers’ classic vocals, she sounds glum yet hopeful. “He’s not coming back as a bird / He’s not coming back,” she sings, bringing back the blunt yet emotional descriptions of grief from the original track "Lost Weekend." “I love you, and I won’t ever let you forget,” she sings, possibly one of the most impactful lines from the record, encompassing the complicated theme as a whole.

In all, Lost Weekend was worth the six-year wait. I would’ve waited even longer. It’s beautifully written, presents a new sound that is so distinctly Phoebe Bridgers, and explains grief and loss in a delicate way that offers solace for those experiencing it. It's an open book into Bridgers' past, describing unique emotions and experiences both explicitly and in ways up to the listener's interpretation. She has never failed to impress me, and Lost Weekend exceeded my expectations.

Phoebe Bridgers, you’ve done it again.