by Becca Barglowski (@beccabarglow)
For Frankie Cosmos’ fifth studio album, growing pains give way to the shaky legs on which the indie-pop quartet takes its first steps into real life. After over a decade at work, their primordial beginnings as a home-based solo project are gone but not forgotten; on Inner World Peace, Frankie Cosmos totes the kind of patient deliberateness that only comes with maturity in time.
Tonally, Inner World Peace does not pick up where Frankie Cosmos last left off; but rather, it casts downward with the firm understanding that Greta Kline can never again embody the person she was when she wrote their earlier projects. Quite literally, there is no turning back time as Kline’s wide eyes now stand to crease her face on “Wayne” - and so, Frankie Cosmos has no choice but to move forward into the unfamiliar.
Growing up but not giving up, Frankie Cosmos counteracts time by way of a shift in sound toward the psychedelic. With looped riffs of whiny reverb and distinct sound layers, Inner World Peace lulls the listener's sense of awareness; and consequently, produces an experience that is indifferent to time. Steel strings ring out and warble on “Aftershook,” accentuated by a flicker of Lauren Martin’s piano and punctuated by Alex Bailey’s punchy bassline; as each instrument vies for the listener’s attention, they must let go of their focus if they wish to follow Kline down the swirling rabbit hole of sound.
The gritty indie-rock of “Magnetic Personality” finds Greta Kline investigating change where it is most apparent: within herself. Holding her past and present up side-by-side, Kline admits to feeling as though she is, “regressing at light speed.” Despite not playing the guitar everyday anymore - nor maintaining her magnetic personality, Kline remains to be highly self-conscious. Still aware but more jaded than ever before, the singer has always integrated introspective inquiry into her artistic process - questioning her very being in the same way a painter does each and every brushstroke.
When Kline breathes out that she’s “listening to 2007 indie” on “F.O.O.F,” Frankie Cosmos’ experimental foray into the darker side of pop is revealed to be a return to the early 2000’s indie-rock roots that made Greta Kline who she is today; Inner World Peace denotes her arrival back home as the means by which Kline hopes to find the answers she so desperately seeks.