by Becca Barglowski (@beccabarglow)
As their sixth studio release, Pollen sees star-crossed lovers Alaina Moore and Pat Riley of Tennis fighting the powers that be. Caught in a violent collision of fate and free will, the darling indie duo prevails triumphant but not unscathed. Pollen is a pearl; a natural wonder that is worthy of reverie both for its beauty and its tortured beginnings as an untoward intrusion of thought.
“Forbidden Doors” serves as the essential introduction to Pollen. Catalyzed by a wandering siren of synth, the first track is rife with sonic signatures: slammed chords, big keys, and shredded steel strings remind us of the Tennis we’ve come to know and love. Despite its familiarity, the first track initiates an album-wide departure from the trust and intuitive faith that once guided Swimmer. In the metaphorical and literal sense, the past stands before Tennis as a forbidden door; Pollen progresses with each first step Moore and Riley dare to take beyond the threshold.
“I can't get back everything I had / Like every question that I've asked / The sun's coming up, but the rain comes fast / I'd turn to salt if I look back” Moore laments on “Forbidden Doors,” likening her reflective rumination to the literal way Lot’s wife looked back on the burning city of Sodom in Genesis. For her inability to leave all that she knows behind, Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt. Those familiar with Swimmer will notice that Moore makes a similar comparison on “Runner” when she sings, “If I become a pillar of salt / I’ll know that it was all my fault.” Where Swimmer merely considers consequence, Pollen barrels towards the same expected outcome of cause and effect without reservation - wholeheartedly believing that she will be turned to salt, Moore chooses now to look back anyway.
Although most of the album exists in retrospective reverie, Pollen finds its purpose in the present. By looking back - by retracing consequences to the root of action, Tennis comes to understand the role their own hands have played in a fate that once seemed predestined. Paced by the steadily slapped bass line of “Hotel Valet,” Moore recalls a moment in which her own decision-making intervened in destiny’s plans for Riley, “You worked the graveyards and you slept through the day / Wearing the uniform of hotel valet / I worked the kitchen when I carried your plate / who would’ve known that I was serving you fate.”
With a long, thoughtful look in the rearview, the time-hopping tracklist of Pollen observes the entirety of Tennis’ past like a distant horizon - narrowing in on each intensely specific moment like a peak. The gaudy confidence of “Never Been Wrong” is all for show. Revved up by Riley’s frantic acoustic strumming, Moore equates her penchant for being certain to nature’s reliable unpredictability. “I’ve never been wrong about anything or anyone / irrefutable as the rising tide or setting sun.” Having previously been guided by their blind faith in the presumably predetermined fate that brought them together, Tennis’ once infallible intuition now teeters upon the inexactitude of hindsight’s relationship with cause and effect, “How can I work with all of this inexactness? It’s like doing needlepoint with a hatchet.”
Home to a heavenly breakdown of psychedelic synths and whining reverb, “Pillow For A Cloud” is the final song on Pollen as well as Tennis’ last chance to find the answers they so desperately seek. Throughout the album, introspective reflection is the means by which Moore and Riley inquire about the workings of fate and free will. Pollen is Tennis’ account of their experiential findings: of the discoveries made solely by the evidence they found in their own tangled lifetimes, “Time passing used to thrill me / Now it only terrorizes me / And it’s evidence carved into my skin / And over everything I ever loved.”
By deliberate intention, Tennis builds up to a grand conclusion; in the matter of fate against the consequences of free will, the answer is that, perhaps there is no answer and there never was one to be found. With a frustratingly tender call to think less and savor more, Tennis suggests that knowing and not-knowing can co-exist just as pollen and flowers in full bloom do.