With a chronological step back from an adored Empathogen, Coping Mechanism shifts its fundamental appeal to serve my tastes immaculately. Willow's entangled expressions and gushes of emotional out-poor feel familiar, yet beneath the music nurtures antagonistic intensities, highlighting darker emotions of anger, frustration and sadness. Ever present overdrive guitars dabble in Alternative Rock, Grunge, Emo and Indie, amplifying a hurt in her lyrics. Sailing above with a playful, creative voice, she finds a beautiful resonance with the unsettled rumble of enthused guitar noise.
From a perspective, these songs could be boiled down to catchy Pop Rock songs centered on angsty teenage emotions. Fortunately the underpinning Pop sensibility blossoms with maturity. Willow's lyrics navigate emotional stresses, gracefully avoid the fallacy of simplicity. Her words dissect, introspect and reflect, mostly on the grief of a breakup, in search of a Coping Mechanism. Opposing aspects of these narratives explored often manifest into beautiful vocal inflections. Its a riveting tug and pull, back and forth, an internal mental battle channeled into infectious sing-alongs.
Producer Chris Greatti and songwriter Asher Bank deserve high praise for their instrumentals. Creatively exploring the aforementioned genres, a Pop Punk ease and occasional touch of Metal aesthetic breeze by effortlessly. The duo weave it all into a cohesive set of both tuneful and mildly aggressive numbers without repeating themselves. One can hear many ideas pulled from across recent decades, rearranged into a new beast. Shifts in guitar tone and color, occasional synths and detailed drum grooves flesh out the experience with continuous variety that's immensely enjoyable.
Coping Mechanism flows, gushes with an infectious liveliness. Willow dances in the river, exuding expressive brilliance. Existing near to unreachable artistic perfection, devoid of weak spots, only its ending seems to dip slightly as the melancholy sways of No Control breaks down intensities for Batshit's return to animated eruptions feeling short of a final statement to wrap it all up. Other than that lack of a landing, this record has been utterly brilliant. Paying close attention to the track listing, trying to select my favorites, I realized the first nine songs are simply sublime. Just wonderful!
Rating: 9.5/10