Most recently I’ve heard that

Most recently I’ve heard that spark in two albums that could not be more sonically different. Jacob Golden’s Revenge Songs is a fey, resigned, folkie exploration of what happens when a relationship that started out very good ends very badly. The Mendoza Line’s Thirty Year Low is a blunt, no-holds-barred exchange between husband Timothy Bracy and spurned wife Shannon McCardle, full of fiery sentiments and equally fiery rock ‘n roll. There’s the unmistakable whiff of real life about both albums.

The Mendoza Line’s album is split equally between Bracy’s and McCardle’s songs. Where they collaborated on previous albums, Thirty Year Low finds them writing separately, and, indeed, living separately. Bracy tries the conciliatory approach of the sensitive artist, remorseful and apologetic, but McCardle will have none of it: