by Caroline Nieto (@caroline.nieto)
Cassandra Jenkins made her mark on the singer/songwriter space in 2021, when her sophomore album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature made waves as the kind of hearty, reflective work the pandemic called for. Humanity, identity, and the Earth are all staples of Jenkins’ music, and these motifs have only evolved in her 2024 follow-up, My Light, My Destroyer. This new album is a smooth walk through what Jenkins has been up to for the past three years. Self-interrogation, family time, and exploring the cosmos are all on the docket. Beginning with “Devotion,” she showcases her knack for honest storytelling, beginning with the brusque, “I think you’ve mistaken my desperation for devotion.” The song forms around her low, velvety voice and strengthens into a climax—strings, floaty background vocals, and soft horns make for an ending that’s grand but understated. That’s kind of the crux of Jenkins’ work—her songwriting power creeps through until it’s all-encompassing.
“Clams Casino,” the album’s second track, feels like a windows down, indie rock road trip. It follows Jenkins’ grandmother as she grows up and loses her freedom, the third-person perspective making the song feel especially cinematic. Jenkins places herself in parallel as another aging person discovering her values, repeating the phrase, “I don’t wanna laugh alone anymore.” Themes of solitude abound on this record, as might be expected on a post-Covid project. The song “Aurora, IL” was written when Jenkins was quarantined in her hotel room after a Covid diagnosis. She describes the version of the world she’d been living in as ”looking for signs of life/circling the parking lot/just to see the blue sky.” This strain of loneliness festers, and with nowhere to go, bursts—the end of the song fills with violins and crunchy guitar, with Jenkins still singing her same melody. Her words amplify the moment, and she repeats “over and over out in Aurora” until the song ends.
Jenkins is a kind of musical transcendentalist—her connection to the natural world gives her songs a consciousness of the bigger picture. “Delphinium Blue” is laden with floral imagery, where botanical growth mirrors the growth of people in her life. In this song, Jenkins pictures herself working in a flower shop, her responsibility as an employee taming the unruly nature of the flowers. She mixes lyrics that narrativize with ones full of abstractions—after “I got a job at the flower shop” comes “I see your eyes in the delphinium too.” She oscillates between candid moments of realism and figurative language to create a story that feels true to the human experience.
Before An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, Jenkins didn’t consider herself a lyricist, rather a musician and multi-instrumentalist. On My Light, My Destroyer, important words are everywhere, even if they’re not sung. An additional voice enters on “Betelgeuse,” belonging to Jenkins’ mom as she identifies the planets and stars that can be seen from their apartment’s balcony. Her authority on the subject gives Jenkins’ point of view the back seat, and she’s back to being a child in awe of the world’s magnitude. Sense of scale is something Jenkins is constantly sensitive to. “Betelgeuse” feels like a companion song to “Hard Drive,” the breakout from her last album that reads like a poem set to music. Both songs illustrate an existential connection to the Earth that lies in the recognition of looking at the same sky as a love you haven’t met yet. “Only One,” which comes towards the end of the album, further exemplifies how Jenkins disguises her mastery with simplicity. “You are the only one I’ve ever loved” repeats in airy layered vocals above a groovy bass line and a drum beat that begs for a head bop. The easy listening style of the song sneaks in arrangements of trumpet, synth, and a muddy lead guitar pops up from the background. The soundscape Jenkins creates is tantalizing, making the song one of the strongest on the record.
The album’s title shows up halfway through the album when Jenkins sings “My lover/my light/my destroyer/my meteorite” on the song “Omakase.” “My light” and “my destroyer” are given the same pitch, a musical indication that within the relationship she sings about, these two feelings cannot be separated. The coupling of these negative and positive poles has always made up Jenkins’ artistic style. This album and her last (as well as its deluxe edition) both feature a pink and purple sky as the focus of the album cover. But it isn't clear whether the images depict sunrise or sunset, end or beginning. Cassandra Jenkins tells us that it’s never as simple as black/white or bad/good. All of the beauty in life lies within the shades between day and night. There’s a reason why the album is called My Light, My Destroyer. When we may try to push these two feelings apart, Jenkins forces us to let them stand side by side.