Tigers Jaw – Lost on You | Album Review
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Hopeless Records
Time is such an endless and abstract concept. It’s understandable why, from an early age, time is typically explained to us in the simplest terms: that it exists linearly. “The past is the past” is an adage most of us have heard at one point or another throughout our lives; however, not everyone prescribes to this idea, positing that time exists cyclically. The past, present, and future versions of ourselves exist at the same time, eternally replaying on our respective timelines. As unconventional as it is, it’s tempting to entertain this theory when many of us are feeling more reflective and sentimental than ever in the face of a world that continues to implode on itself with each passing day.
Whether one views time as linear or otherwise, it feels inherently human to track its passage through our relationships with others. It’s easier to accept a past self as the superior version, even more refined when attached to someone else, but it’s always an illusion. If we measure ourselves only by bits and pieces of memory, we can become locked in stasis, never reaching our full potential. True evolution of the self lies in accepting where each entity lies in our timeline, rather than allowing one version to consume ourselves and our futures alike.
In Lost on You, the latest album by Pennsylvania Indie quintet Tigers Jaw, the band explores this idea of our various selves existing alongside one another through their tried-and-true brand of melodic and multi-layered rock ballads. It’s been a trying and turbulent five-year-long interim since their last record, and, in a post-covid world, that half-decade has felt like an eternity. I Won’t Care How You Remember Me landed at such a different time in all of our lives; it’s hard not to feel like a completely different person. Having that time to marinate and sit with the band’s last album only makes Lost on You that much more gratifying. They’ve matured and been hardened by the years – and so have their listeners. Tigers Jaw elegantly navigates this parallel growth with their audience, leaning into what feels most natural without feeling overly harvested.
Sticking to what works creatively isn’t inherently bad, but certain bands suffer when they rely too heavily on what feels comfortable. It’s been particularly exhausting in recent years to wade through albums that mostly iterate on previous releases without any sense of risk. There’s seemingly an overabundance of confidence in what works and not enough confidence in being adventurous. Lost on You only reinforces that I wouldn’t want Tigers Jaw to tweak their creative method in a million years, because they seem incapable of losing that balance.
Throughout their seventh studio album, the band expands on their load-bearing qualities – gentle, swinging rhythms meeting harsh guitar tones, ornamental keyboard work, dynamic sequencing, rich instrumental color – approaching it all with a fresh touch. When you have as symbiotic a setup as Tigers Jaw, especially the vocal back-and-forth of Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins, why tinker with that kind of sonic chemistry? Being a massive Menzingers fan for years as well, it’s hard not to draw the comparison to lead vocalists Greg Barnett and Tom May’s reciprocity, their own chemistry similarly evident in each of their releases. Whether Ben and Brianna are switching lead vocals for entire songs or imperceptibly shifting between lead and backing vocals on tracks like “Primary Colors” or “Staring at Empty Faces,” their mutual confidence in one another is as palpable as ever.
Every element of Tigers Jaw is performing at their absolute best on this album, fluently exploring new ways to do what they’ve been doing for years. Teddy Roberts’ drumming and Colin Gorman’s basswork anchor every track tightly, with Mark Lebiecki’s guitar tones and solo lines giving form and shape to standout tracks like “Lost on You.” The old upright piano textures of “It’s ok” are enchanting in a way that’s unmistakably Brianna – sensibilities that can only come as a product of being with a band that she has known since her teen years. Lost on You delivers a novel experience while still laying down quintessential Tigers Jaw bangers like “Baptized on a Redwood Drive,” which exude the classic elements that make this project so special.
The band’s consistent writing style and unique way of weaving their lyrics together have never felt more potent. It may seem trite to view a Tigers Jaw album as a collection of poems when that describes most albums, but this description feels especially apt for Lost on You. Each song acts as a small vignette of time, place, and feeling, cleverly wrapped in abstract metaphors that harken to a time when the only tool one had to pick apart an album was their own thoughts and best guesses about the musician’s intentions.
As someone who is constantly thinking about previous relationships as they relate to the past, present, and future, Lost on You hits like a ton of bricks. Tigers Jaw’s particular composition style only complements the ways in which time and our own idiosyncrasies can distort our approach to relationships. “Roses + Thorns” feels deceptively melancholic despite the “love song” essence in its lyricism, while “Light Leaks Through” unabashedly eviscerates with the lines “It hurts to be alive and not beside you / The version of the person that you miss does not exist / I’m learning everything I was refusing to admit.” When it comes to the people or the relationships we’ve lost, we hang on to idealized concepts because those scraps are all we have. They’re frozen in time as our own subjective versions, but that isn’t real life. The key to moving on is letting go of those apparitions.
The final track, “Lost on You,” returns to the beginning of the album with a single progression shift that feels so rewarding, both as a thematic and compositional device. Repeating the lines “I am blood in the gums of a sensitive mouth / I am looking for peace in a world full of doubt” established in the opening track, “It’s ok,” articulates this idea of time being recursive and allowing your past to come back and haunt you. Lost on You seamlessly evolves from start to finish, and it almost feels a disservice to ever digest it piecemeal. The album features so much diversity in its melodies and concepts, yet forms a cohesive experience thanks to the band’s ability to ensnare the listener and lead them anywhere.
Consistency doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, and Lost on You is proof of that. There is a heartwrenching, pensive message to this album, achieved by a gravitas so uniquely Tigers Jaw. Perennial art helps us to navigate challenging ideas wrapped in illusion and abstract concepts, hiding their meaning in plain sight. It can help tap into past versions of oneself, enrich our current self, and challenge us to be a better version of ourselves tomorrow. Tigers Jaw has delivered on all fronts in Lost on You, and it’s evident that they are in tune with all of the best versions of themselves, too.
Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com.
