REVIEW: Eskimeaux - Year of the Rabbit

Laura Kerry

The lyrics in Eskimeaux’s Year of the Rabbit contain an above-average amount of two grammatical features: quotation marks and question marks. Sometimes she quotes a quiet lover who responds only with “I don’t know,” once she quotes Nietzsche (“every past is worth condemning”), and occasionally the quotes just float freely without a source. And she asks many questions—are you mad? What the fuck is a kiss? And do you possess the courage?

With all of these questions and quotations, Eskimeaux’s EP seems to hedge its way forward with an indirectness absent on her first album, O.K., which packaged candid reflection in sweet, clear pop tunes. But for all its uncertainty, Year of the Rabbit is no less powerful and no less pretty. Gabrielle Smith, the woman behind the gentle voice and catchy, melodious songwriting, has a way of turning hesitancy into strength. Take the use of "Are you mad?" in the opening song, for example: Alone, the question sounds fragile and insecure, but repeated four times in a row in the song, its anxiety is palpable and bold.

Some of the album’s strength comes from the contrast between its music and lyrics. Most of the six songs on Year of the Rabbit are sunny and a little soft around the edges, more suited to the line in “What the Fuck” about “puppy paws [leaving] muddy tracks on the sheets.” But instead of adorable puppies, the most striking creature on the album is a more violent one: “Wish I could love you less like a praying mantis / Rip your head off every time this starts to feel right,” she begins on “Power,” singing in the voice of someone who seems unlikely to rip a head off over shimmering guitar. Somehow, though, we never doubt her toughness, which is conveyed mostly through the vulnerability of her words. “I don't just wanna fuck / I wanna show you love,” she admits at the end of “Drunk” as an electric guitar whirs as loud as it ever gets on the album.

In general, Year of the Rabbit is a quieter affair than O.K., trading in much of the crisp synth and percussion loops of the first album for looser, live-recorded guitar and muted drums from bandmates Oliver Kalb, Jack Greenleaf, Felix Walworth, and Emily Sprague. The result is a boost towards the bedroom side of Eskimeaux’s bedroom pop—and on an album whose single, “Power,” includes the refrain, “What power can be drawn / From just a day of being alone,” that is a natural place to be. After an outward-facing pop album, Year of the Rabbit takes its time to close the bedroom door, ask some questions, replay some conversations, and quietly reflect.

REVIEW: Eskimeaux - O.K.

Laura Kerry

Despite the fact that I woke up with a different Eskimeaux song stuck in my head more days than not this past week, it’s a challenge to articulate why. Not that the phenomenon is completely unexpected; with its catchy melodies, clever production, and pure vocals, Eskimeaux’s O.K. provides immediate and satisfying rewards. But the degree to which the straightforward-seeming songs engrain themselves in waking and in sleep begs further excavation. And what you find in that digging—what makes the album good in a way that’s hard to explain—are a whole lot of things that shouldn’t belong together.

Eskimeaux, the Brooklyn-based project of songwriter Gabrielle Smith, has delicately woven an album of subtle oppositions. Though it’s rooted in the craft of folk and rock songwriting, most of the music manifests in various shades of electro-pop. The pure, almost childlike voice is at odds with the refined emotional clarity of its messages, and the dreamy music and lyrics seem to contradict the fact that they’re actually quite grounded and accessible. These and other dichotomies shift throughout, merging in different combinations from song to song and verse to verse in surprising but seamless transitions.

This delightfully strange mix is apparent from the first notes of the album, in the opener, “Folly.” Beginning with Smith’s clear voice and the strumming of a high, jangly guitar, the early moments of the song present the illusion of pure folk, which is shattered after about five seconds by the reverb-heavy drum loop. Later, a distorted guitar comes into the mix along with a full drum set, building the first of the many gratifying eruptions that Eskimeaux engineers so well. And throughout it all, Smith maintains an atmosphere of eerie fantasy.

The second tune sets a very different tone. Entering with a bubbly synth line and hummable melody, “Broken Necks” presents as pure, feel-good synthpop. But by the song’s quiet conclusion (“Nothing in this world is holier than friendship”), an underlying ache emerges. The catchy chorus, “While you were breaking your neck trying to keep your head up / I was breaking my neck just to stick it out for you,” tells the story of struggling and ultimately failing to make a relationship work. It takes real skill to create a breakup song that’s simultaneously so upbeat and so devastating.

O.K. dips in and out of the up-tempo pop of “Broken Necks” and dreamier, more somber moments, tied together by the consistent threads of Smith’s voice, her abstracted-yet-vulnerable songwriting, and—despite the DIY origins of the Epoch, the arts collective Smith and her bandmates cofounded—the music’s polish. These are the elements that draw you in and keep you coming back. It’s the experimental and contradictory current underneath, however, that stays with you—and stays with you stubbornly, if my past week is any indication. But, hey, if you can’t get something out of your head, it might as well be this intriguing.