Jenny Lewis at The Eastern [Photos]

Last June, Jenny Lewis released her fifth solo album, Joy’All, and it was a career triumph for the former Rilo Kiley bandleader after more than 20 years of success. As a follow-up to 2019’s On the Line, the songs of Joy’All champion personal bliss and celebrate intimacy. On lead single “Psychos,” Lewis spins a colloquial framework of sensuality and confidence: “I’m not a psycho / I’m just trying to get laid / I’m a rock ‘n’ roll disciple / In a video game.” It’s similarly provocative to a song like “Red Bull & Hennessy” from On the Line, but displays a fresh layer of balance and self-centering. “Cherry Baby” is another vulnerable, diaristic endeavor gleaning an upbeat bent and another Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind image. “‘Cause I fall in love / Too easy, too easy / With anyone / Who touches me / Fucks with me,” she sings atop a mellotron dueting with a very stripped-back, sing-a-long-style percussion.

“Despite the planetary clusterfuck it was mostly written in, Joy’All is Lewis’ brightest, grooviest and coolest album yet,” music editor Matt Mitchell wrote. “The 10 tracks live up to the title they’re packaged under. Even “Balcony,” which she wrote as a tribute to a friend who died by suicide during lockdown, evokes a celebratory memorial rather than a solemn eulogy. When talking with Paste seven years ago, Lewis mentioned that she has full shoeboxes of lyrics. To no surprise, her prolific tendencies continue today—and she’s pretty adamant about not losing inspiration. ‘I don’t experience writer’s block, nor do I experience imposter syndrome. People are like, “I feel like an imposter.” It’s like, “Well, maybe you are!”‘ she adds. When the world shut down three years ago, Lewis was working with Chicago poet and rapper Serengeti and Minneapolis multi-instrumentalist Andrew Broder, sending songs back and forth in, what she calls, their own “little version of the Postal Service.” Around that time, “Psychos” and “Giddy Up” were already finished, but the bones of Joy’All had not come alive just yet.”

“This new chapter finds Lewis shifting the perspectives from other people onto herself, and it’s done so with a generosity that feels both earned and quantifiable,” Mitchell continues. “’When you come out of the woods and you see the moon or the sun, it is inevitable—coming out of this period of great change and grief and acceptance,’ she says. ‘[Joy’All], on the surface, is a lot about dating or relationships, but, really, every single song comes back to your relationship with yourself.’ A track like ‘Giddy Up’ is a prime example of that bliss-chasing mantra, where it explores—as Lewis puts it—“cognitive dissonance” in the stage ‘before you’re ready to get your shit together.'”

You can see pictures from Jenny Lewis’ set at the Eastern in Atlanta on March 12th, taken by Donny Evans, below.