Margaret Glaspy spent the last few years quietly logging off, and it did something to her psyche. She came back with a razor-wire shotgun aimed at her own perceptions. The shell is I Am Both—the fourth Glaspy album and the first one that sounds that has no real studio trickery, no gloss — just Glaspy, a guitar that sounds like it’s been in a knife fight, and a trio (Jay Bellerose on drums, Patrick Warren on keys, Ross Gallagher on bass) who play like they’re eavesdropping on a that same knife fight through a dirty motel wall. You can hear the nerve and feel the rawness on each of these tunes.
“Michigan” opens the record with Glaspy fleeing a breakup toward the coldest state she can think of, fingerpicking like she’s trying to outrun her own hands. “That Rose” is the record’s fever dream, all surreal longing and vocal runs that snap from a purr to a snarl in the space of a breath — proof she can still out-sing anyone. “James and Marie” starts buttoned-up and unravels itself, a relationship coming apart at the same pace as the guitar line underneath it.
Glaspy writes about people who talk past each other, wound each other by accident, and leave rooms mid-sentence — and instead of moralizing about it, she just lays it on the table like a card trick or, again, a shotgun shell.
