Petrichor—the biochemical term for how the earth smells right after it rains—is a phenomenon of memory as well as rot. The scent depends on the makeup of a place—city asphalt has its own petrichor, different from that of rural woods—and more specifically, the decomposing matter around it. Despite those fetid origins, people consistently rank it among their favorite scents, seeking it out in fragrance and in the field. Perhaps they are drawn to the decay.
070 Shake certainly is. Her lyrics plumb the torment of love without flinching; her voice often sounds like it’s bubbling up from the depths. Petrichor is a perfect album title for her; as she told Vogue, the scent-memory is “a reflection of the music itself.” Those who’ve followed Shake since 2016, when she signed to G.O.O.D. Music, already know this. But millions more listeners learned in 2022, from her feature on British artist RAYE’s monumental single “Escapism.” The track, a bad trip from afterparty to aftermath, clawed its way out of TikTok to the Billboard Hot 100 (both RAYE and Shake’s first entry there) to Song of the Year at the BRIT Awards. The song wouldn’t fully work without Shake’s third verse. She deglamorizes the affair; all the frantic posturing falls away until it’s just her and her defeat.
On Petrichor, 070 Shake is well aware that larger stages are forthcoming, and she expands her sound accordingly. As on her past work, much of the album is co-produced by Dave Hamelin (Beyoncé, Leikeli47) and Johan Lenox (Big Sean, No I.D.) But there are changes. Megaproducer Mike Dean is out; pop songwriter Sarah Aarons (Tate McRae, Ravyn Lenae) is in. Shake is a multihyphenate singer-songwriter-rapper, but here she leans toward the former two, replacing most of the rap with ballads and orchestral pomp.
These are all expected moves from an artist coming off her first Top 40 hit and probably wanting more, yet it’d be a real stretch to call Petrichor a pop album. Her distinctive sound is still here, particularly the parts inherited from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: the proggy distorted arrangements, the vocals processed and blown-out until they’re like sawblades in your face, the enormous anthems that aspire to arena rock. (Shake might aspire to arena rock even more than Ye, judging by how often she reaches for guitar solos and gospel climaxes.) The paranoid rap tracks “Lungs” and “What’s Wrong With Me” are practically G.O.O.D. Music homages.
But on them, and throughout the record, 070 Shake forgoes obvious formulae and crowdpleasing moves in favor of an almost compulsive experimentation. First track “Sin” begins as an inauspicious piano ballad, Shake’s mumbled vocal the only thing separating it from whatever old coffeeshop, until the chords go wonky and the whole thing blows up. “Elephant” pulls out a post-punk breakdown Martin Gore would endorse. Petrichor thrives on such surprises, and to continue the track-by-track play-by-play would deprive you of them. But “Winter Baby / New Jersey Blues” in particular is an object lesson in how short-form compositions need not be limited to short-form ideas. The track is barely over two and a half minutes, yet 070 Shake fits in a lo-fi nursery rhyme version of Blondie’s “The Tide Is High,” some low-key surf rock, and a closing-credits march.
This does raise a question: Did you actually want to hear a lo-fi nursery-rhyme version of “The Tide Is High”? Petrichor’s many quick pivots are almost guaranteed to provoke occasional frustration that Shake has seized upon a great idea and then let it go. Which tracks provoke it is a matter of taste, but “Blood on Your Hands” probably qualifies on contrast: It crushes the album’s wildest production between two heavy slabs of spoken-word Tumblr poetry, some of which is unfortunately intoned by Shake’s girlfriend Lily-Rose Depp. The masochist musings and Joan Baez references are no doubt meaningful; they’d make a great private love letter.
Petrichor’s best tracks find one mood and fully plumb it. “Into Your Garden” segues Satie-esque piano into an intense slow-burn of a toxic love song. Shake cranks up the arena-rock dial once again—Clapton-esque guitar, big percussion—but finds an even more explosive sound in JT of City Girls, who lands like a grenade. “Song to the Siren,” with Courtney Love and (an uncredited) Melissa Auf der Maur, might seem like an odd choice for Shake. Not only is it a cover of a cover—inspired by This Mortal Coil’s recording of the Tim Buckley track—but the 4AD version has Liz Fraser, whose voice is as ethereal as Shake’s is guttural. But the song’s obsessive longing clearly resonates with Shake, and she and Love are an inspired pairing. They’re both among the rougher, grimier vocalists of their respective genres, and they both sing with the urgency of artists who’ve followed their feelings to the dramatic end. Love—always eager to scout the newest generations of artists for worthy successors—called Shake “a goddess… a purist and a queen.” That’s the sort of endorsement you can swerve a whole career toward.
