Cassandra Jenkins Makes a Giant Leap Forward With Career-Defining ‘My Light, My Destroyer’: Album Review

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music For the uninitiated, Cassandra Jenkins is a New York-based singer-songwriter with a pristine voice, precise enunciation and a tone that at times recalls St.

Vincent (although you’d rarely confuse the two). Her star began rising quickly with her 2021 hushed, downcast sophomore album “An Overview on Phenomenal Nature,” which paired personal, finely honed lyrics with subtle acoustic instruments and atmospherics.

But her new album, “My Light, My Destroyer,” is such a leap forward that it vaults her into a whole different league. While her previous albums were more solo and low-key, this one finds her working with a cast of strong musicians — notably producer-guitarist Andrew Lappin — and expanding her musical palette exponentially, from classic indie rock to electronics-infused ballads, with splashes of string sections and even jazz in the musical backing, and her songwriting has advanced just as dramatically.

The album starts gently with the quiet “Devotion,” but then the electric guitars come crunching in on “Clams Casino” and it seems like we’re off into indie-rock heaven — but then there’s another pivot on “Delphinium Blue,” a gentle, atmospheric track with a nearly all-electronic backing and a distant, sung counter-melody.