Indigo De Souza is at her best when she goes big—not necessarily meaning glossy production or fancy flourishes, but monumental feeling. De Souza has one of the most dynamic voices in indie rock today, one that’s refreshingly rough around the edges in a subgenre noted for its vocal homogeneity. Even her habit of sliding into or hovering around the notes she can’t quite hit complements the unease and vulnerability of her songwriting. The word “raw” feels overused, but that’s how De Souza sounds when she’s operating at full power: like she can’t be contained any longer, like all the layers have been peeled back, leaving just her sky-high falsetto and grainy, full-throated yelp. Her recent single “Heartthrob,” with its sticky “Dancing in the Dark” jangle and jubilant “I really put my back into it!” seemed once again to put her heart on the line.
So why does the majority of De Souza’s fourth LP, Precipice, play it so safe? Why do songs about falling in and out of love—which felt uniquely life or death on early highlights like “How I Get Myself Killed”—now seem to come off the rack in the form of the cutesy “Crush” and country-tinged “Heartbreaker”? Why do a pair of tracks in the album’s second half, “Dinner” and “Clean It Up,” sound like they could’ve been Phoebe Bridgers’ leftovers? Most frustrating is when De Souza falls into awkward, unspecific rhyme schemes (“Pick up, say hello/I’m here, ready to go/Like a, a fast car/Don’t know if you should turn it on”) or pop psychology tropes (“Always holding space”) already memed into dust.
I’ll admit I’ve grown tired of the indie rock frontperson–to–pop–star pivot where, a few albums in, a dynamic and critically acclaimed lead singer puts down the guitar, cleans up their production, and even suggests this may be their “most personal work yet,” as if anyone were going to accuse them of selling out. But this pivot can be done really well—particularly when it feels more like a natural expansion, and when rock-star charisma translates to pop. De Souza herself pulled this off masterfully on 2023’s All of This Will End. Songs like “Smog” and “The Water” were grand and danceable; “You Can Be Mean” bit back at an abuser with sass and substance; the showstopping power ballad “Younger & Dumber” brought down the curtain.
Precipice is not without excellent hooks, and the ones on “Crying Over Nothing,” “Not Afraid,” and “Heartthrob” let De Souza’s star power shine through. But when a record’s great moments are just that—moments—waiting on them is tedious. The xanned-out roller disco of “Crush” will make you want to flip right back to “Crying Over Nothing,” while “Heartthrob,” the lead single, is an oasis in the album’s sluggish middle section.