Chastity Belt were roughly 100 miles from Asheville, North Carolina when lead vocalist Julia Shapiro reached her breaking point. Just before touring their last album, 2017’s I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, Shapiro split up with her long-term partner and had a possibly cancerous portion of her thyroid removed. She toughed it out on the road for about a month, when her bandmates—guitarist Lydia Lund, bassist Annie Truscott, and drummer Gretchen Grimm—collectively decided it was time to hit pause. So, the Seattle indie rockers cancelled the remainder of the tour, simply citing “health concerns,” and Shapiro sought comfort by driving two hours east to stay with an Asheville friend. Shapiro was experiencing an existential dilemma of sorts: “I had a lot of questions going through my mind,” she explained. “‘Should I be doing something else with my life? What else could I do?’”
Shapiro relays this anecdote on “Rav-4,” a highlight from Chastity Belt’s self-titled fourth album. “Fooled them all, then hit a wall/Lay in Kate’s bed, it’s true what she said/That giving up can take some guts,” she sings. “Lost my mind and much more, but who’s keeping score?” The rest of Chastity Belt reveals some of the “much more” Shapiro feels is vanishing: her ambition, her hopefulness, and maybe most of all, herself. But even when Shapiro was at her lowest, Chastity Belt never seriously considered calling it quits; their friendship has been going strong for over a decade now, and their combined force feels more evocative and pointed than ever. They’ve long abandoned the crude wit of their 2013 debut, but Chastity Belt still maintains that closeness of hanging out with friends in your living room, engrossed by each others’ ruminations until the wee hours of the morning.
Friendship is a recurring theme on Chastity Belt, from “Rav-4”’s Kate to “Elena”—named after the pseudonymous Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, whose most well-known works centered around the companionship of women as their rural Neapolitan town collapsed at their feet. Chastity Belt seem to liken their own emotional turmoil to Ferrante’s ruins: “Changed all your plans to line up with his/Hanging onto every word he says/Measured your self worth/By his judgements,” Shapiro sings, an eerie retrospective after the collegiate tribulations of No Regerts and the whatever-forever demeanor of 2015’s Time to Go Home.
This heightened self-awareness also presents itself in tracks like “Effort,” where Grimm envisions an immaculate version of herself while seeking refuge in a new relationship—perhaps in an attempt to avoid facing her own insecurities. “Running for cover, into another/It’s not what I need, but it seems to be what I want,” Shapiro sings. “I could be perfect, I could exist/Just how you need me to be in this moment.” Chastity Belt’s lyrics have always been clever, but here they attain a sort of nonchalant wisdom. “Been counting on someone, but I counted wrong/So now I’m feeling pretty dumb,” goes one particularly jarring line of “Half-Hearted,” before reaching a resolution in closer “Pissed Pants”: “Now I’m obsessing over endings/And all the things that are holding me back/You said, so casually, ‘Everything just works out.’” Chastity Belt’s best lyrics are just as casual and profound.
The album was co-produced by Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, resulting in Chastity Belt at their dreamiest and most tranquil. As far as their Pacific Northwest predecessors go, there’s little evidence of their livelier original inspirations like Sleater-Kinney and Autoclave, instead leaning on hushed Elliott Smith-ish delivery, lush reverb, and traces of strings. The album’s lethargy can feel tedious, a little lacking in contrast; most of its songs stroll past at similar tempos and volumes, rarely culminating in moments that could be considered “big.” But Shapiro has something to say, and Chastity Belt is largely confessional; her words are the focus here, and these simple, serene landscapes are a fitting backdrop to hear her loud and clear.
Buy: Rough Trade
