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- Courtesy
- Rebecca Ryskalczyk, Say It Back
(Self-released, CD, digital)
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Rebecca Ryskalczyk is best known for fronting Brooklyn indie-rock outfit Bethlehem Steel. The band formed at the State University of New York at Fredonia and later relocated to New York City, where it established a gloriously fuzzy yet indie-pop-adjacent sound. Following a breakout performance at the 2016 SXSW festival, Bethlehem Steel received the coveted "indie darling" tag and soon populated influential blogs and hipster playlists everywhere.
The band is only one of Ryskalczyk's musical endeavors, however. The Buffalo, N.Y., native, who moved to Bristol last year, also fronts DAMP, an indie-rock supergroup of sorts featuring members of Washer and Pile.
These days when she's on her own, Ryskalczyk's music tends to push toward a more synth-heavy, dark-wave sound. Her latest release, Say It Back, simmers with an undeniable undercurrent of seething frustration throughout, starting with album opener "Be the Light."
"My body isn't mine / If I have no say over my insides / So tell me what I like / You'll decide it either way," she sings over a soft electronic beat and waxing and waning guitar riffs.
That's not to say that Ryskalczyk's punk influences don't come to the fore at times. The title track is a driving, doom-laden rocker that serves as an anthem of boiling-over tension and eroding patience in the face of tragedy.
"Well, I'd rather have big feelings than a giant fucking hole inside my chest," she sings almost deadpan, "that you try so hard to fill with all the people you've oppressed / Say it back: Will things get better?"
That track is something of a thesis statement for Ryskalczyk, who originally planned on releasing Say It Back as a series of singles over months. In an email, she said she ended up dropping the whole album on November 14 because she didn't want to "play the game of putting singles out or taking up more space right now while we are watching a genocide in real time," referring to the Israel-Hamas war currently raging in the Middle East.
"The track 'Say It Back' is exactly how I feel right now," she wrote. "I do hope that this track might help some of you who get told 'You can't save them' feel less alone. Maybe we can't, but at least we're fucking trying."
For all the album's righteous anger, there are also some flirtations with outright dance music. "Water Pop" is an accurately named slice of indie pop on which Ryskalczyk eschews the hushed vocals of the darker tracks and lets her voice soar.
She goes full-throated crooner on "Carousel Mall ft. Katie Morey" before channeling the slow-exploding grandeur of the Jesus and Mary Chain on "Oh," ready to shift lanes almost effortlessly at any moment. Say It Back is a thrilling, dark, angry and often beautiful collection of music.
Say It Back is streaming now at rebeccaryskalczyk.bandcamp.com. The new Vermonter will celebrate her release with a show on Sunday, December 10, at the Monkey House in Winooski.