Foil Deer

Coming soonFoil Deer is the sophomore album from Massachusetts€ Speedy Ortiz. €œI€m not bossy, I€m the boss,€ Sadie Dupuis sings on first single €œRaising the Skate,€ invoking in spirit one half of the Carter-Knowles clan and echoing the other€s wordplay. And wordplay makes sense, considering Dupuis€"the band€s songwriter, guitarist, and frontwoman€"spent the band€s first few years teaching writing at UMass Amherst. She€s drawn to the dense complexity of Pynchon, the dreamlike geometry of Bola±o, the confounded yearning of Plath€"all attributes you could easily apply to the band€s 2013 debut Major Arcana, which fans and press alike have invested with a sense of purpose and merit uncommon in contemporary guitar rock. Dupuis wrote much of Foil Deer at her mother€s home in the Connecticut woods, where the songwriter imposed a self-regulated exile and physical cleansing of sorts, finding that many of the songs came to her while running or swimming alone. €œI gave up wasting mental energy on people who didn€t have my back,€ she says. €œThis music isn€t coming from a dark place, and without slipping into self-empowerment jargon, it feels stronger.€ Many of the songs deal with a similar sense of starting over, editing out the unnecessary drama. €œBoys be sensitive and girls be, be aggressive,€ she sings on €œMister Difficult.€ And while their debut album was recorded on the fly, Speedy Ortiz spent almost a month in the studio on Foil Deer. Mike Falcone€s drums are taut, mechanistic; Darl Ferm€s bass ranges from the aggressive rattle of an AmRep classic to smoother, hip-hop inspired lines. Devin McKnight, meanwhile, lends spacier, textural riffs to complement Dupuis€ wiry, melody-driven guitar style. It was recorded and mixed at Brooklyn€s Rare Book Room with Nicolas Vernhes (Silver Jews, Enon, Deerhunter), with the record mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, Haim, Beauty Pill), lending a more polished sound and a pop sensibility that will stand out to existing fans and new converts alike.