Sasha Alex Sloan release new music video “Adult” and announce new album. “It was extremely cathartic,” the singer-songwriter says of her sophomore album.
“Can I say I’m proud of this album?” Sasha Alex Sloan poses the question. “It’s terrifying to say that out loud.”
When I spoke with Consequence over the phone, she seemed cautiously optimistic about the release of her upcoming full-length album, I Blame The World (available Friday, May 13th via RCA Records). It’s a noteworthy characteristic, especially given her recent description of I Blame the World as a “non-hopeful” record.
“I couldn’t write about anything else,” she adds, referring to the fork in the road many artists came to during the outbreak and in the months since: accept realism or lean towards hopeful escapism. Sloan went with the latter option.
To that end, the eleven-track album is astonishingly cohesive, focusing primarily on the tension and chaos of recent years, as well as the epiphanies that come with processing these events. Expectant listeners got a glimpse of the remainder of the album with the singles “I Blame the World” and “New Normal,” while “Adult,” which is released with a new music video today, May 11th, features a bit of the humor she wants to portray as well.
Lyrics such as “It finally hurts being hungover/ But it’s still not worse than being sober” are matched with “No one ever warned me growing up gets sort of lonely,” capturing both the humor and the heart of being a young person right now.
“I think I’m in a better mentality now than when I made the album,” she says, describing how she recently gave the album a thorough listen and was blown away by what she heard. “At the time I was writing it, I didn’t even like music.” Nothing seemed right, this album isn’t right, and the world is on fire.” It’s a sensation that virtually every artist can relate to, but luckily for us all, she overcame it.
The song collection that would become I Blame the World took a long time to develop. It began in a more folkloric setting, but Sloan rapidly became tired with it, causing her to switch gears. She ended up writing almost fifty songs for the CD and then had to choose just ten. She also wanted to balance aural pleasure with stories that fall differently on a closer listen; a superficial listen to the album can leave one person feeling elevated, whilst paying attention to the lyrics might lead to a more reflective experience.
A bluesy ballad like “Dancing with Your Ghost” sounds as as at home in Sloan’s repertoire as a more indie-country collaboration with Sam Hunt, “When Was It Over.” There’s surely a bit of a double-edged sword that comes with being a songwriter competent across genres. Things became easier as the album’s topic, principally the challenges of navigating young adulthood in turbulent times, began to take shape.
She later says that the authenticity of Netflix’s Oscar-nominated picture Don’t Look Up from 2021 startled her, and that she recently fell addicted to Apple TV’s sleeper hit Severance. While this album is still lighter in tone than either of those pieces, it’s clear to see how the topics in both can be linked to her current interrogation.
“Getting it all out and then starting living life again was extremely cathartic,” she adds. “Authentic adventures and meeting new people motivate me the most – one of the most difficult aspects of the pandemic was how limited our experiences were.” Of course, this sentiment extends to touring. Sloan hasn’t been able to go on a headlining tour since 2019, but that will change in July. The artist will tour with Jessie Murph and Slimdan in the late summer/early fall. (Tickets are available here.)
That offers fans plenty of time to memorize the words, many of which will be just as cathartic to shout out loud in a crowd. Sloan has a track record to be proud of until then, and she should keep bragging about it.
