The Weather Station : Humanhood

The Weather Station has always been a malleable project, arising here and there with a refined approach that gradually outgrew its origins. The sole constant since 2006 has been Tamara Lindeman, now on an impressively productive third album inside four years; 2021’s arresting Ignorance and its successor How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars originated from the same sessions, the latter’s sparse sonic palette chosen by design—three days of recording that Lindeman just about pulled off before everything came to a grinding halt in mid-March 2020.
Lindeman’s never been a fan of repeating herself, and sure, there are Weather Station hallmarks to be found throughout Humanhood, but what makes it so singular in its approach is that the foundations of the music you hear are entirely improvised; five supporting players reacting in real time to lyrics that offer an unflinching look into the band leader’s mental health and also make the personal feel strangely universal. The first line we hear from her arrives on “Neon Signs,” the album’s lead single, as she’s caught in a tailspin: “I’ve gotten used to feeling like I’m crazy, or just lazy / Why can’t I get off this floor?” Mirroring her lyrical preoccupations, these songs seem ready to collapse at any moment; even at their most straightforward, the ease with which these songs latch on to new ideas gives the record a sense of constant forward motion; always moving toward something, always leaving something behind.
There’s an undercurrent of volatility to these songs, something that speaks to Lindeman’s lived experience and the topics she draws from; the likes of “Mirror” turn on a dime, dissolving and rebuilding themselves as something entirely new, while the relatively straightforward “Window” is layered and busy enough to conjure up the feeling of restlessness and dread that comes with experiencing a panic attack, told through moments that sound almost unreal, the narrator taken out of herself almost completely (“What am I doing, standing dizzy on my own landing / A change of clothes hastily packed and the key to some apartment cold in my hand?”). “Ribbon” is undeniably beautiful, piano and Karen Ng’s woodwind interjections dovetailing perfectly, contrasting sharply with another moment of overwhelm, as Lindeman tries to keep it together in the back of a club, her words scanning as lyrical fragments before the song fades away and blurs into “Fleuve,” one of four complementary interludes scattered throughout the record.
The album’s title track zeroes in on Lindeman’s urge to come back to herself and rebuild, striving to find peace among moments of anxiety and panic, “carrying a body that’s tired from carrying a mind.” The word “humanhood” itself captures the feeling of existence, everything that comes with being alive; even at its most musically pared-back, this is an album that crackles with vitality, the deliberate looseness of the arrangements offering surprises around every corner. These songs sound almost alive, every reaction and detour deeply felt, such as when “Irreversible Damage” spins up into a sprawling instrumental that captures the freedom and unpredictability that drives the album as a whole—taking risks and having them pay off.
The album closes with “Sewing,” with Lindeman taking that thread and using it as a metaphor for putting herself back together, emerging out the other side of the storm we found her in on “Neon Signs,” doing the best with what she’s got. “It don’t look like much from here,” she sings, the work-in-progress of a life in which “no two days are ever the same” is being fleshed out musically and lyrically over six minutes, cresting to a swell of cathartic joy a little over halfway in, settling back into itself from near-silence. Having plumbed the depths of herself for about 40 minutes, Humanhood ends with its creator relearning how to find joy in the little things: “I’m walking from side to side / I’m taking pictures of the sky again / I don’t know why / I guess I wanted to.” The act of creation expressed on the album’s closing track encapsulates the circumstances in which it was made; something deeply personal, healing for artist and listener alike, buoyed by the conditions in which it was created, and the results speak for themselves. Lindeman’s coming up on two decades as an active artist; at this point in her career, to produce an album that is, on the whole, so unlike any of her previous work—that’s a remarkable achievement.
Label: Fat Possum
Year: 2025
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