Queen of Jeans Explore Cyclical Heartbreak on All Again

All Again is not a breakup album. At least, not exactly. It’s hard to tell exactly what there is to end. The central relationship of Queen Of Jeans’ third album floats in a perpetual state of “What are we?” Lead vocalist Miriam Devora and the fair-weather object of her unwavering and unwise affection are trapped in an on-again/off-again cycle marked by the astronomical highs of colliding together and the dismal lows of pulling apart. This almost-attainable crush/hookup/partner brings the entire world with her whenever she decides to re-enter Devora’s orbit, and takes it all away when she inevitably and abruptly leaves. This person’s all-consuming magnetism overshadows all other (better) influences in Devora’s life. The push-and-pull of their undefined relationship mimics that of Devora’s internal conflict: one moment she’s determined that true love is within her reach and that she can turn their entanglement into something serious, the next she’s resigned to play whatever role the person needs her to play at any given moment. “You could know love if you’d only hear me out,” she pleads on “Enough To Go Around.”

This desperation is most unabashed on “Horny Hangover,” a pop-rock ballad with a sprinkle of twang to it. The ability to wreak much more emotional havoc than a song called “Horny Hangover” should be allowed. “Let’s start at the top / I fell desperately in love / With someone I knew was bound to fuck me up” is a behemoth of an opening line, especially when the soft, fake-out acoustic guitar gets stampeded over by the drums charging in. Devora’s cheeky ad-libs (the smirking “All I can say is…” before the first chorus and the defeated “Fuck it” before the last) cinch the already-brimming-with-personality track together.

While “Horny Hangover” drops us directly into the throes of this hopeless romance, the opener that directly precedes it, “All My Friends,” acts as All Again’s tone-setter, particularly for the way its narrative revolves around the gravitational pull of this one person. “No one sees me like you see me / And I’m convinced without your voice I’d float away,” Devora sings, before confessing to reading the news of whatever city her crush happens to be in, just to feel the slightest bit closer to her. It’s probably not much more than coincidence that this track shares its title, slow-building structure and themes of loneliness with a certain LCD Soundsystem classic, though the similarities end there.

While the dynamic between the album’s central sometimes-lovers is compelling to follow, some of the most striking songs are the ones in which Devora’s love interest is defined by her absence. This withdrawn partner comes and goes as she pleases, and when she’s going, the distance forces Devora to fill the empty space with her own internal conflicts—giving the listeners insight into how insistently present this person manages to be even when they’re nowhere to be found. We see the hobbies that Devora tried and fails to use as distractions. On the flickering dream-punk ballad “Karaoke,” she tries to drown her sorrows in cover songs—only to realize halfway through the performance that her mic’s been off the whole time. “I’ve been careful on my own,” Devora belts during a chorus that dissects this person’s power over her (“When I fixate on my flaws you build me up / We watch them fall / I wish you could hold me ‘til I break them all.”) Adding to its appeal on a more meta level is the fact that “Karaoke” would make a great karaoke song. When singing other people’s songs for strangers doesn’t work, Devora turns to literature on the hazy heartland rocker “Books in Bed,” only to end up even lonelier. When the whole band joins in to sing “They said it wouldn’t hurt so bad,” it hurts just right.