Alynda Segarra has come a long way. Literally, as a teenage runaway who escaped New York to hop freight trains and ended up settling in New Orleans; and musically, on a journey from recording country folk covers of Billie Holiday and Lead Belly towards this eighth album, which finds them with a new record label and in their strongest position yet for crossover pop rock success.
Five years have passed since the last release, which was a concept album of political folk rock that saw Segarra reconnecting with their Puerto Rican roots and the causes of their people. Lyrically, they’re no less serious here. Precious Cargo is a slow, semi-rapped story of the long journey of some refugees to arrive in the US: “We sleep on the floor for 17 days/Foil blanket shivering hard.” The male voice at the end of the song is someone Segarra met while working with a volunteer organisation that supports asylum seekers. “Keep helping people,” he urges, “because immigrants are suffering.”
On Pierced Arrows, it’s Segarra doing the running, trying to escape vampires, thieves, rich kids and “my ex on Broadway”. The difference in tone is in the music. There’s a new layer of electronics, a droning synth line giving extra energy to this one and recalling Sharon Van Etten’s similar blend of keyboards and propulsive rock guitar on her song Comeback Kid. The single Rhododendron is a delight, fast-moving acoustic guitar rushing along into a fun, snappy chorus addressed to a plant. They’ve called it “nature punk”, a neat description of the way raw guitars mix in with a more wholesome feel overall on Pointed at the Sun. The closing track, Kin, is simply a recording of a tree covered in wind chimes, with bird song audible in the background.
The producer is Brad Cook, who also helped Waxahatchee to sharpen her sound and reach a wider audience well into her career with her 2020 album, Saint Cloud. There’s very little filler here, and a simplicity to some of the songwriting that gives added poignancy to the title track, with its drifting piano chords and shimmering synths. Nightqueen is another slow one that achieves a still power with scant materials. In a spoken interlude, they note: “As a species, as life on earth, we’ve been dying for millennia.” A heavy observation, but delivered inside music full of a vitality that also seems to offer some hope.
