Augusta Koch made her name in the middle part of the 2010s as the frontwoman for Cayetana, a raucous all-female punk trio from Philadelphia whose unfussy songs took cues from classic '90s riot grrrl and lo-fi indie while taking on stigmatic issues of mental health and self-image. Even before parting ways with her bandmates in 2019, she had begun to shift toward a more personal and varied approach, playing a series of solo acoustic shows and teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Matt Schimelfenig to record under the name Gladie. Now freed from her primary musical commitment, Koch turns her full creative attention to the project with the full-length Safe Sins. Like the 2018 EP that preceded it, Safe Sins is musically a full-band effort, though its intimate lyrics feel ripped straight out of the singer's innermost thoughts. Although this project is ultimately more low-key, introspective, and sonically layered than Cayetana was, Koch naturally brings to it a similar ragged edge of weary catharsis. "Faith is just a pill we trust when all the words fall short," she sings on "Even at Your Easel," a neatly arranged standout whose mid-tempo groove is peppered with swirling slide guitar bits, piano, and quirky sonic details. "Cosmic Joke" is another contemplative highlight full of bleak contradictions and warm-toned jangle. Bookending Safe Sins is a pair of textural, mostly solo tracks, the first of which, "Pray," plays like a quietly desperate paean to anxiety with Koch intoning "I don't know how to slow down, I don't know what calm is" over a soothing synth bed. The latter cut, "Choose," winds the album down amid a dirgey stack of electric guitars that eventually fall out as if exhausted. Safe Sins is a dark and vulnerable album centered around grief and loss, but as with her work in Cayetana, Koch has a knack for communicating messy feelings in a way that doesn't push the listener away.
© Timothy Monger /TiVo