With their previous albums,
Poliça proved they're on a first-name basis with emotional trauma.
Give You the Ghost chronicled a life-changing breakup, while the political angst of the late 2010s seeped into every cranny of
Music for the Long Emergency. Just weeks after that album's release,
Channy Leaneagh fell off her roof while clearing ice dams off of it, breaking her L1 vertebrae and damaging her spine. The physical as well as emotional pain she dealt with as she recovered gives
When We Stay Alive its backbone, refocusing the band's music and songwriting. Much like
Charlotte Gainsbourg's
IRM, another album that eloquently and sometimes harrowingly traced recovery with shape-shifting pop songs,
When We Stay Alive captures every nuance of
Leaneagh's journey with unflinching honesty. There's much more to the healing process than gratitude for being alive, and the frustration simmering in "TATA" and "Little Threads" and the claustrophobic isolation within "Fold Up"'s trip-hop reflect that.