Pictoria Vark – Nothing Sticks | Album Review

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I keep forgetting my headphones. The snow finally melted here in DC, so I’ve been going on lots of walks, but I keep forgetting my earbuds in my other jacket or purse. I always notice when I’m halfway down the block, and I always decide it’s not worth it to turn back. That means I’ve been going on quiet walks lately. These walks are usually in the evening, at a time when I watch the streetlights turn on while I’m still far from home. I love these walks. The sidewalk is just uneven enough that I can’t look at my phone without risk of tripping, so I don’t. It’s one of the only times of day I feel truly lost in the sounds of my street, neighborhood, and city. I’m aware of every song playing in every bar I pass, what time the birds stop singing, and that one annoying car alarm. I usually spend these walks lost in thought, thinking about last year, the future, and writing this review. Pictoria Vark seems to be on the same walk with me.

Pictoria Vark’s sophomore album, Nothing Sticks, takes Victoria Park’s ongoing, contemplative self-awareness up a notch as she explores both the uplifting and grueling sides of such ruminations. It’s been almost three years since the Chicago-based artist released her acclaimed debut album, The Parts I Dread. Much like her new record, Park’s debut was similarly introspective, weighing her loneliness, her anxieties about the past, and her focus on making music. However, due to the passage of time and her ascendancy as an indie rock darling, Park’s introspection has expanded, widening to look at her life on the other side of that previous worry. Written over Park’s pulsing heartbeat bassline, Nothing Sticks is a pensive indie rock collection that invites listeners to reconcile with, well, how nothing sticks.

The album begins with a dirge as a rolling drumbeat melds with Park’s bass tone through the introduction of “Sara.” It’s a somber melody that turns from concrete to atmospheric and back again over and over, with each clash scaling further and further up. Park’s bass leads the charge as a trumpet overpowers the drum’s steady rhythm. The song falls back, and a guitar croons. It surges again, blanketing her vocals in a balanced cacophony. Park was inspired by environmental sounds and describes this weaving brass encroachment as reminiscent of “a high school marching band in the distance.” 

After establishing the stakes with this introduction, Park rewinds with “No One Left,” a song where shuffling reversed audio is balanced with a guitar digging deeper and deeper as Park sings a repeated admittance, “I think I could love you.” From there, “San Diego” captures her biggest sound yet, thanks to the use of a string section, which has a bright and romantic effect. This elevation leads to “I Sing What I See,” Park’s first song on the album contending with her experiences performing. Much like lights on stage or the roar of a crowd, the song engulfs her.

The song I have been singing the most under my breath is “I Pushed It Down,” which begins with a bare beat before adding a guitar strum for the chorus. A symphony suddenly sparks around the minimalist sound, and a violin becomes a second voice, complementing Park’s as it ducks and dives around her words. The song has a starry quality that winks and waves as Park sings the melancholy refrain, “I pushed it down.”

“Make Me A Sword” sits at the heart of the album. Heart meaning that it’s the center of the project, the most vulnerable, and the place the titular sword is likely aiming towards. In the song, Park confronts both herself and her music career head-on, contending with the relationship she has with her coping mechanisms and her onstage presence. Lyrics paint Park in different roles: a Sisyphean character, a court jester, and even a knight as she grapples with understanding her coping mechanisms and letting them go. Lyrics like “Make me a sword to point against me, I’ll be your shield if it protects me” illustrate this two-fold dynamic over a rhythm that would feel familiar coming out of a basement at a house party. It's a song that dances with multicolor lights and buzzes with warmth.

“Make Me A Sword” fades, and the distorted “Lucky Superstar” begins. This is the album’s loudest track, with a fuzzy and almost haunting feeling as Park repeats “big, blue heart” over an ever-crashing, scratchy crescendo. “Where It Began” follows on an opposite note, delivered with a kind of stripped-down melancholia. It builds like the pressure behind your eyes right before you cry. The album as a whole starts to slow before “We’re Musicians.” In the final track of the album, Park’s bassline bops to a beachy tune, throwing out defeating lyrics like “thank God for good days and bad luck” or “your eyes don’t crease when you smile at me” before drowning the words in total shred.

When describing this album, Park explained, “Everything we want to last, whether it’s a relationship, a moment, a career, or a way of life, will come to an inevitable end.” And like she suggests, this album has to end too, so, with the sound of endlessly crashing waves, it does. 

Nothing Sticks isn’t reassuring, but it’s not dooming either. It's a normal statement that comes from years of consideration and, therefore, is perfect for applying meaning and reflection. The point of this album isn't to get lost in these contemplations but rather to accept the need to let them go. So I am going to keep going on my long walks, and I’ll still be meditative sometimes or whatever, but maybe next time I’ll remember my headphones.

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Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.

Pictoria Vark – I Can't Bike | Single Review

There are some artists you will never forget hearing for the first time. Maybe you remember precisely where you were, when it was, or how you first stumbled across them. Sometimes the experience itself is notable, but more often than not, our brain decides to lock these feelings of initial discovery into its long-term memory banks because the music connects with us in some profound way. You hear the song, and you’re struck with some variation of “how have I gone my whole life without this?”

I have many artists that fall under this criteria, but one project I’ll never forget hearing for the first time is Soccer Mommy. I had never heard of Sophia Allison or her band until 2018’s Clean, which had just released and was the talk of the town in indie music circles at the time. I threw that album on, and everything seemed to click all at once. It was gorgeously produced, instrumentally stunning, and disarmingly confessional. I’d never heard anyone sing about those topics quite the way that Allison does on that record. 

When I press play on “I Can’t Bike,” the newest single from Pictoria Vark, I am immediately struck with the same things I felt when I first heard Soccer Mommy all the way back in 2018. Pictoria Vark is the solo project of Victoria Park, a clever spoonerism that allows Park to explore the brutal and ever-changing waters of her twenties through earnest and emotional indie rock. This similarity to bands like Soccer Mommy isn’t found just in the song’s brilliant instrumental or structural modesty, but a deeper ethos rooted in something universal, human, and truthful. 

Much like the best songs from Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail, or any of those deeply personal bedroom-born indie rock projects, “I Can’t Bike” hinges on the singer grappling with some form of personal failure. These songs find their heroes recognizing something they’re bad at and struggling with that fact openly. This form of harsh self-judgment is an immensely relatable experience, especially for people in their early 20s just on the cusp of entering adulthood and encountering new pratfalls in seemingly every area of life. 

Sometimes these personal failings can come from our own lack of experience, and other times it’s because we’re unfairly comparing ourselves to those around us. In the case of “I Can’t Bike,” the song finds Park honing in on near-imperceptible ticks of someone she’s known for years and realizing that she has her emotional work cut out for herself. It’s easy to get hung up when you’re on the receiving end of these types of interactions, but that’s where music becomes the perfect outlet. Rather than harp on these negative emotions, Park turns them into a communal outpouring that any listener can absorb and fit into their world. 

“I Can’t Bike” begins with, of all things, a steady bassline. While this initially might seem like an odd way to kick the track off, the instrument doesn’t sound out of place in the slightest. In fact, once you find out that Park has played bass for the likes of Squirrel Flower and Dee Snider, this choice seems like a no-brainer. 

Within seconds, Park’s delicate croon enters, setting the scene as her bass keeps time. Thirty seconds into the song, the guitar and drums (all played by Park) enter the fray, propelling the track forward while still keeping the pace set by the initial soothing bassline. The song rolls onward with momentum and adoration reminiscent of Blue Deputy’s “New Jersey,” weaving a lush mid-paced Beach House-esque instrumental that the listener can fully luxuriate in. 

As this rising instrumental punctuates each verse, the track eventually culminates in an eruption of distorted guitar around the two-minute mark for a fiery solo that offers a mixture of catharsis and redemption. As the music video shows, this song is not actually about biking at all, but finding comfort in the presence of close friends. The title “I Can’t Bike” captures one possible meaning of the complicated world of early-adulthood emotions while the lyrics capture another. The single is crafted so that anyone can listen and project their experiences onto it, finding comfort in the fact that they are not alone.