Album Review: Japanese Breakfast - Psychopomp

Michelle Zauner's debut as Japanese Breakfast is a brief and beautiful thing, sharp at a distance, like a photo of a knife.

At times it's coated in sun-drenched synths like in The Woman That Loves You; at others it's distant and despairing, hiding beneath the rocky guitars of Rugged Country. Whether lingering like they got there by accident, piercing and pleading, or popping with energy, her vocals are magnetically ungraspable and draw you steadily through the album. The gorgeous shoegazing instrumental shifts make thoughtful and necessary breathers between material that forces engagement everywhere else.