Whitney: Small Talk

"Hotel lobbies. Hotel elevators. Your local CVS in 10 years. A restaurant that sells three tacos for $25 and serves them on a stainless steel zigzag. A Spotify mix titled "Chill Vibes Indie Road Trip" between a song by an AI-generated classic rock band and "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Antidepressant commercials. Listen to these songs with your eyes closed and tell me you don't see a formerly depressed woman slow-mo running through a meadow."

"The Chicago indie rock band's fifth record, Small Talk, is ostensibly a breakup album but its sound is uniformly muted, lacking even post-heartbreak apathy. The lyrics deal with the dissolution of a relationship, almost always in the vaguest of terms. "I can't talk without crying," Julien Ehrlich croons, although other than his nasally delivery, nothing in his inexpressive voice suggests that this is true."

Whitney's Small Talk adopts a muted, personality-free soft rock aesthetic that often reads like background music for retail, hotels, playlists, and commercials. The fifth record positions itself as a breakup album while maintaining a consistently subdued tone and minimal emotional specificity. Lyrics reference relationship dissolution in vague or generalized terms rather than detailed expression. Julien Ehrlich's nasally, inexpressive delivery frequently fails to convey convincing feeling. Instrumental touches such as schmaltzy strings and a Donnie Trumpet–style horn section offer little emotional uplift. Moments of attempted sentimentality land as resigned detachment rather than catharsis.

Read at Pitchfork