On first blush, the low-key folk stylings of Cassandra Jenkins could be mistaken for the legions of bland singer-songwriter types who create their idea of “sad music” without bringing original sound or thought to the table. But her last album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, showed her expanding her sound and experimenting creatively, especially on the stand-out track “Hard Drive,” which winded through five-and-a-half minutes of whispery storytelling with saxophone and piano flourishes. Jenkins’ latest album, My Light, My Destroyer, shows continued growth, as uneventful shifts at a flower shop, hotel room stays, and trips to Petco are turned into high-definition songs full of existential questions.
The specificity in the lyrics is a key to making this album stand out. My Light, My Destroyer presents what feels like a literal road map of experiences and memories. Jenkins zooms in on tiny details and is able to expand them into big ideas: on “Clams Casino,” someone ordering the titular dish without knowing what it is stands in for the feeling of aimlessness many of us have wandering through life. The somewhat grungy “Petco” turns her trips to the pet store into ruminations on whether she can ever take care of a pet or even herself. The most prominent location is “Aurora, IL,” and on that song she spends a night in a hotel on tour staring into space and the room’s ceiling — material that fits the song’s dreamy rock vibe with its strings and surprisingly heavy guitar.
Jenkins gets the musical part of storytelling also, and every song on My Light, My Destroyer sounds the way it feels it should sound. The highlight of the album — and of 2024 music in general — is “Delphinium Blue,” which is where all of Jenkins’ gifts come together. She’s working in a flower shop while longing for someone and her spoken-word recitation of her tasks (“chin up/stay on task/wash the windows/count the cash”) is juxtaposed with her desire while the music swells with beautiful almost shoegaze-like noise. It’s probably the most accurate depiction of a peaceful, mundane job in a song, and it’s another example of how Jenkins can make ordinary life sound spectacular and tiny moments feel massive.
For all I know, the stories Jenkins is telling could be fiction. But these songs are detailed and lived-in enough that the distinction doesn’t really matter — these are reflections on loneliness, anxiety, and yearning that feel completely believable and authentic. And all of the themes are bolstered by a sense of wonder that particularly comes through in more experimental songs like “Betelgeuse” where she’s just talking while looking into the stars. My Light, My Destroyer perfectly captures how the world is vast and awe-inspiring — which makes it that much more difficult to find your place in it.
The Noise Made By People 