My Light, My Destroyer

If Jenkins is the poster child for anything, it’s that there’s always a place for yourself in the vastness of time and space. It’s a striking, and very human, proposition throughout the record that grief and anticipatory awe can exist as a singular emotion, in a blip on the cosmic scale; the overwhelming ego death of human self-importance and the perfect realisation of its own in-spite beauty, that love and death are on the same spectrum.

It all adds up to one of the best albums of the year so far and what feels like Jenkins’ true arrival.

Her previous album was a breakout success for good reason, but My Light, My Destroyer succeeds in all the right ways, pushing Jenkins' songcraft ever forward and expanding her already impressive catalog.

She explores themes that have been relevant at least since the advent of the Cognitive Revolution 30,000-plus years ago – creation, destruction, ecstasy, transcendence – yet does so in her own contemporary, refreshing, and utterly commanding way.

The result is a record that confirms … Phenomenal Nature was no fluke. This is the sound of Jenkins hitting her stride – less disembodied than its predecessor, more grounded, its tone ranging from the easy warmth of Tom Petty to the steady discernment of Aimee Mann, via a little Laurie Anderson. [Jul 2024, p.28]

The seven-track album [An Overview On Phenomenal Nature] left us craving no less than seven more. My Light, My Destroyer, then, is everything a third Cassandra Jenkins album should be: Across 13 pieces of music, dialogue and field recordings, Jenkins invites us closer to home and takes us further away.

Jenkins captures the complexities of the human experience, finding beauty and inspiration in the most unexpected places. [Aug - Oct 2024, p.104]

My Light My Destroyer is a transformational record for Jenkins. However daunting the path forward may seem, she has a lot to say as she overcomes successive challenges.

Music this textured is bound to take a few listens to get a hold of. Most impressive is how My Light, My Destroyer presents music that can be easily enjoyed – hooks and memorable lyrics abound – yet unravels deeper layers of meaning the more you dig in.

“Only One” highlights Jenkins’ facility for understated sophistipop; she’s a masterfully silky interpreter of hurt, a canny channeler of failed love in the softest possible tones. But the album’s very best song is its most atypical. “Delphinium Blue” is mostly synths.

The album’s only other real fault is that an unnecessary number of interludes for such an economic LP (runtime: 36 minutes) creates a sense of disjointedness. However, My Light, My Destroyer remains an unmistakably gorgeous listen created by a musician attuned to perfecting lilting melodies like few others are.

My Light, My Destroyer is the work of a master storyteller, capable of inhabiting characters with real empathy and noticing evocative details. [Aug 2024, p.104]

Put together, the disparate elements that make up ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ may betray the occasional influence, but combine to produce a singular world – one that is, at points, both deadly serious and funny, but always habitable.

It’s doleful but beautiful, a brooding delight: whatever pains were staked in its making were clearly worth it.

Warts and all, My Light, My Destroyer is an accomplished effort, and given the context of its release, I’m very happy we get to listen to it.

Jewel-sparkly and gently devastating. .... Devotees of Judee Sill, loved-up Bill Callahan and When Harry Met Sally will find it bright-eyed, glossy of coat and gentle of snout. Take it home. Feel less alone. [Aug 2024, p.85]

My Light, My Destroyer, is the zippiest rocker she’s penned to date, but her whispercore vocals—so pitch-perfect on the album’s opener, the hazy morning reverie that is “Devotion”—clash with the song’s jagged electric guitars and chugging rhythm. Fortunately, this is an anomaly on an album in which Jenkins’s voice typically melts seamlessly into the subtle, vast sonic tapestry.