Amy O: Elastic

There’s a tautness to most of the songs—a frenetic energy that tightens and releases just as the title of the album suggests. This propels the songs forward, a sensation that’s heightened by the non-traditional song structures that Oelsner favors. Songs zig and zag in a way that could be dizzying if she wasn’t so good at grounding them with a big fat hook—even chorus-less tracks get indelibly wedged in your brain. Take the lilting melody at the center of “Cherry Blossom,” perfectly grounded with relentless drums and a blazing guitar outro, or “History Walking” whose fizzy keyboard riff and rapid-fire cadence will make you move whether you want to or not.

She leaves moments for rest. And I do mean moments. Even songs that start out feeling like exhales (“Sunday Meal” and “Spinning”) morph into something else, often with the hearty smack of a snare on the backbeat. Crunchy, dizzying guitars swirl around her perfectly unbothered vocals; her love of the Roches coming through in the close-knit harmonies of “Spill” and “David”, the influence of Helium present in the low-slung grunge of “Soft Skin.”

This inescapable feminist lineage permeates Elastic, with Oelsner describing it as “learning how to be loud and take over a room, when those are things I’ve been socialized not to do. It’s been a very powerful realization that I can do that.”

She echoes this sentiment in her lyrics, the frequent mention of windows and light (sparks, neon, lightning) revealing a preoccupation with openness, exposure, and self-discovery. It comes as no surprise that Oelsner’s day job sees her running an after school zine-writing program for teens, encouraging others to see the value in their own voices and experiences the way she processes her own through song. “Lavender Night” is about a recent medical scare, while “Sunday Meal” is about returning home after the death of her grandma. These are disjointed diary entries that also happen to kick ass.