The downside to being an artist with the will, courage, and talent to progress with each record is that, when you don’t, it feels like more of a letdown than is perhaps fair. Many of us were introduced to Jilian Medford’s IAN SWEET project via 2016’s Shapeshifter, a record that sounded like Yeah Yeah Yeahs covering P.S. Eliot with the math rock dial variably turned up and down. Seemingly tracked to a melting tape recorder, it was texturally fascinating even despite the then-trio’s limited lo-fi palette.
But there were good reasons—such as misogynistic comments from her bandmates—for Medford’s decision to ditch that lineup and era. Two years on, Crush Crusher sounded like it had a budget and a producer. It was an easier listening experience if a little less exciting. Still, Medford continued turning universal little nuggets into abstract visuals—“I’ll get swallowed by someone else’s spit”—even as a more porous vocal style usurped the playful yips and rollercoaster melismas that had earned Shapeshifter so much acclaim.
In 2021, Medford signed to Polyvinyl for her sleekest record yet: Show Me How You Disappear. It was written after she’d spent several months sequestered in an intensive mental health program. And so SUCKER, in 2023, showed Medford getting her life back. She made it in a more pleasant environment: a Catskills Mountains lodge with round-the-clock studio access and two trusted pals. Afterdark, twinkly, and shoegaze-y, it focused on daily importances such as kissing—lots of kissing—not to mention fucking and fighting and long car drives. Medford was still mixing SUCKER the day she landed in New York to start her new life. And now she’s back in her native LA for the release of Shiverstruck, her new album.
That return to LA complicates the narrative around Shiverstruck: it’s not her homecoming record. It’s her New York record, written entirely during her second year in an unfamiliar, hard-to-handle city that engendered odd jobs, bad sex, and pining for California rain. When the record was finished, and before heading back West, she ended her relationship with SNL cast member Martin Herlihy, even though the album leaves them arm in arm. “A good year by your side / Always late at night,” she sings near the album’s end.
This is emblematic of Medford already being miles ahead of the new record, which too often resembles SUCKER’s offcuts. More kissing, more car rides, more recounting of dreams—it does a lot of retreading. Even the song she calls the centerpiece, “Wild Heart,” has this line: “I’m the reigning champion / The saddest girl in the room / But I’ve given up the title now.” Sure, it’s a cool lyric and a worthy sentiment, but she already gave up that title three years ago, saying this exact thing in an interview for the last album: “It’s OK not to be the saddest girl in the room.”
“Jilian” is a poignant and promising concept for a track that breaks new ground. Addressing herself, Medford holds Jilian to account for thinking pain makes her more interesting, while at the same time celebrating small wins and moments of self-safety. Alone at a matinee, she tells us, herself, whoever—“Don’t sweat it / I’m good on my own anyway.” There are some weird, evocative little lines here, too—good weird—like how she frames the sunrise as a party she’s throwing because she can’t sleep. The music is accordingly intimate, as though it’s all for her. This is track four and, at this point in the album, you feel a strong sense that it’s about to use “Jilian” to pivot direction—you want that from it.
Instead, “Deadweight” delivers self-burns but in a far less empathetic and interesting way: she’s a deadweight, always late, a total mess, depressed, and so on. It feels jarring because it undoes a lot of what “Jilian” just beautifully constructed. It doesn’t help that the arrangement is on the bland side, reminiscent of Best Coast when they went too radio-indie on Always Tomorrow.
The album does pivot. It’s just a little later, on “Hired Gun”—a fantastic, important song with motorik propulsion, some wicked guitar parts, and smart commentary on how we perfunctorily address others’ trauma and mental health journeys, often with baked-in sexism. “I’d fake my death and leave this city / Just so you won’t look me in the eyes and say / ‘You look well, you look pretty,’” Medford sings as the music solidly chugs forward. The line cuts deep and it’s a subject matter that, I’d argue, has more mileage and resonance for invested fans than the “love-is-a-dead-end” trope from “Speed Demon,” or flirting with the idea of getting back with a bad-news ex on “Criminal Kissing.” Especially given all we know about Medford’s story to date.
“La La Love Me” follows “Hired Gun” and is equally brilliant with the album’s biggest, bubbliest chorus, the guitars circling and dive-bombing like giddy vultures. There’s even some yelpy peripheral backing vocals that echo Medford’s since-retired singing style from her debut. Appropriately, “Shiverstruck,” the title track, is a good encapsulation of the album’s overall hit-and-miss makeup. It offsets the “my therapist says this…” lyric trope with the most arresting line on the album: “Got the love of a million mothers / Pacing in waiting rooms / Praying on some good news.” Oof—that could have come from Flannery O’Connor.
With each album, the IAN SWEET project has lunged forward one full step—at least. But Shiverstruck feels like the first time Medford has managed only a half step. Japanese Breakfast, an artist I think started in a similar place sonically and took a similar trajectory, showed us on Jubilee that you can evolve and find joy following dark times while making your best work. Medford can, too—it’s just a testament to all the endlessly rewarding music she’s put out over the last decade that Shiverstruck feels like a C+ grade. Hopefully there’s some consolation in that—because she’s one of our very best. This just feels like the one before the one. [Polyvinyl]
Hayden Merrick is a London-based music journalist and Features Editor at The Line of Best Fit. He also writes for Bandcamp Daily, FLOOD, and others.
