July

Marissa Nadler wastes no time in cutting close to the bone on July, her latest album and first for her new North American label, Sacred Bones. “Drive” opens the record with one of her most devastating lines, addressing a quandary we have all grappled with at some point: “If you ain’t made it now/ You’re never gonna make it.” July is the kind of release that reminds you why NPR counts Nadler's songwriting as so “revered among an assortment of tastemakers.” This is a singular achievement for the artist, a record she couldn’t have made earlier in her career because, as every songwriter knows, she didn’t just write these songs: She lived them.