Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern

While that may largely the case – it’s hard to say, really, as someone’s playing within a band doesn’t necessarily showcase their full musical ability – it tends to distract from the issue at hand, which is that she writes triumphant, multi-faceted, fists-pumped-in-the-air pop songs that really ought to be as well-known and loved as the likes of Sleater-Kinney or even Joanna Newsom (with whom she shares a beguiling ability to weave webs with words). The fact that she shrouds those songs in layers of incandescent guitar noise merely serves, as far as these ears are concerned, to elevate them even further to that wondrous zone where music and lyrics blur into one single, mind-altering sensory whirlwind.

And she’s made quite incredible advances with each successive release. For a debut, 2007’s In Advance Of The Broken Arm was strikingly full-bodied. Though searing and chaotic, ‘Vibrational Match’, ‘Put All Your Eggs In One Basket…’ and especially ‘Every Line Means Something’ all betrayed a keen ear for pop construction, even as Zach Hill’s backdrops appeared to dissolve any restrictive notion of time signature into a free-flowing stream of consciousness. Last year’s This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And… further honed that sense, gradually inverting the previous record’s sound by pushing her vocals further forward and integrating guitar fireworks deeper into the noisy haze.

With her third, self-titled album, that inversion is complete: Marnie Stern is the most accessible thing she’s made to date, but beyond potential audience appeal it’s also a quantum leap toward in terms of songwriting. That may seem surprising considering it’s also her most fractured and personal set of songs yet, written during a bad period that’s exchanged ambiguous triumphalism for something a little more melancholy, but it turns out that even sad Marnie bursts from the starting blocks in a flurry of sound and colour.

Still, while her guitar burns brighter than ever, and Hill’s liquid drumming drives everything home with the same sort of force, lyrically her focus has shifted. While her earlier records read almost like self-help guides, or motivational manifestos – yelps of “adjust your perceptions!” on ‘Vibrational Match’, “keep on, keep at it!” on ‘Grapefruit’ – the devastatingly sad ‘For Ash’ (written for a deceased former lover) and ‘Transparency Is The New Mystery’ see her turn the lens inward, with affecting results. And while it’s hardly a sonic reinvention, everything on Marnie Stern feels that little more considered, more carefully put together, a subtle but noticeable improvement in songwriting. While the sheer wired chaos of her earlier records was occasionally tiring, as if you’d been spiked with veins full of caffeine that just wouldn’t wear off, or were stuck on a speed trip that refused to end, here she channels that nervous energy into something endlessly rejuvenating.

Album of the year contender? Without a doubt, and in a less productive year she’d immediately have bounded to the top spot. Plus, it’s not very often you come across someone who can transform devastating grief into a blast of sheer euphoric warmth, as she does on ‘For Ash’. As celebrations of life goes, it’s a fitting tribute, and glows warmer with every listen.