Photo via the artist
It’s very easy to see indie folk rock as an emotional wasteland, full of white boys feeling sad about an independent woman, or full of white women sad about anything, because it kind of is. Thank god, then, for Lucy Dacus, whose debut album No Burden is an amazing breath of fresh air in an otherwise overwrought genre. She’ll remind you of Waxahatchee, Sharon Van Etten, and even Hop Along every once in a while. She writes wildly direct lyrics that deal with anxiety, identity, and occasionally love, but this record is most definitely about finding out who you are and taking control of your own life.
Videos by VICE
“Usually I’ll just be walking from my house to somewhere else, and melodies and words will start coming up, and I’ll have to run home to write it all down,” Dacus says about her writing process and the inspiration behind her songs. “I have a huge note on my phone where things just start popping up. It doesn’t make that much sense to me at the time, but once a song is finished, I can read into it and figure out who the characters are in my life. Hopefully when you listen to a song, you can say, ‘That’s me,’ or ‘That’s someone I know’ — you relate to it in a way that’s cathartic.”
It definitely is, in that “I want to be alone with this record” kind of way. Dacus is a brave lyricist and her sensual expression of catharsis will stay with you long after you’ve finished with this record. Listen below, pre-order it here, then grab some tickets for a show (dates below!) before it’s too late.
2/27: Washington, DC @ Bathtub Republic
2/28: Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
3/3: Harrisonburg, VA @ Clementine
3/4: Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
3/8: Raleigh, NC @ The Cave
3/10: Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5
3/11: Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
3/15-20: Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/23: Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Festival
3/29: Detroit, MI @ PJ’s Lager House
3/30: Toronto, ON @ The Burdock
4/1: Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
4/2: Burlington, VT @ The Skinny Pancake
4/4: Providence, RI @ Boarding Haus
4/5: Portland, ME @ One Longfellow Square
4/6: Boston, MA @ The Middle East
4/7: Hoboken, NJ @ Northern Soul
Annalise would like a moment to herself, thank you. Follow her on Twitter.
