From the identical faculty of finely turned disco wiggles as Arthur Russell’s poppiest moments, “Verify Your Face” romances widespread sense—Wilkins urging it to “season me in reasoning,” and approaching so sturdy that there’s a superb probability this would-be seducer doesn’t perceive the equanimous object of her affections in any respect. It speaks subtly and incisively to how ideas like widespread sense, boundaries, and bandwidths have grow to be buzzwords, but additionally sees the delusion of making an attempt to conclusively attain them as endearing, as the best of basslines contrasts Wilkins’ exaggerated purr. The dreamier “Oh Trivia” comes on the devotional have an effect on from a unique angle, a waltzing torch tune performed on what feels like an affordable keyboard concerning the tiny rewards to be discovered on this planet round you: the seaweed, “funny-looking oak leaves,” the “snowflakes and cornflakes” of a Norwegian winter. “They are saying the satan lies within the particulars,” Wilkins sings, coining one other beautiful, wonky aphorism: “I feel that’s only a phrase … Not all good issues are named after saints.”
These humorous, bizarre, tender songs are solid in a softer gentle than Wilkins’ earlier albums, not least the unsettling SAP. Some might lament the shortage of eeriness on Oh My God, however her adept songcraft, enveloping melodies, and mood-conjuring is sure-footed and enchanting—recalling Marry Me-era St. Vincent and the uncanniness of latter-day Cate Le Bon—and never quick on off-kilter element. Opener “The Wannabe” is straightforwardly rapturous, bluesy neo-soul that by no means lapses into pastiche as a result of the sensuality Wilkins is craving is just not rote carnality however that of fundamental human feeling: “I’m not a sculpture,” she sings. “I’ll take the frustrations/Simply let me again into my physique once more.” “Assist, I’ve Been Put Into Context!” laments the pinned-butterfly indignation of being incorrectly perceived with wry humor—“Caught up on my hind legs/Converse in languages I by no means knew”—and tactile, rehumanizing magnificence: chimes like tapped jars, snippets of soul drum fills, gently climbing acoustic chords.
The fragility of all that is underpinned by the potential destruction lingering across the edges. “My Berenice,” a story of obsession and breakup, is suspiciously pure and loving till the top flares with hysteria: “They are saying you dig your individual grave,” sings Wilkins, constructing to a match of pique, “however I dug hers too.” A canopy of Shirley Collins’ 1960 tune “House Woman” (subtitled “(Shirley’s)”) is a prescient story of a woman appearing towards her personal pursuits, instructed by her mom’s warning towards the harmful lure of house know-how; it winds up with Wilkins shrieking in a pained voice towards sharp, bullheaded guitar. “And I Have a Blessed Life” is an insistent incantation of gratitude that adheres on amid invocations of dread and seismic bass. “Life is Nietzsche on the seashore/And then you definitely die,” Wilkins sings in an ecstatic conclusion.
