Black Polish explores the darkly enthralling side of isolation on their debut album Forest (Monsters Live In The Trees). Its title references the densely secluded Maryland woods that 18-year-old artist Jayden Nicole Binnix called home during the pandemic — a time when depression and disassociation became a bedeviling part of their daily routines. Soundtracking that potent angst is a uniquely fluctuating blend of moody rock and lightweight folk that is at times lent an ecstatic pop buoyancy.
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The album begins with Black Polish leading you by the hand into the very depths of this inner world. “I see monsters in the trees / I see creatures just like me,” they murmur on “Monsters” against a haunting twilight of sound. “I’m addicted to this place / I’m accepted in this space.” Its first song reveals the complicated relationship that takes shape in the face of such solitude — generating an intoxicating but illusory safety that’s impossible to dispel even when external circumstances (like quarantine) have long ended.
Between the heavy strums that rumble over “Tears Are Falling,” they unveil a mind plagued by eerie creatures that fracture and warp their personality, while the lush and resonant melodics of “Streetsigns” find them racing in vain to escape the fears conjured by their own mind. “Broke my heart cause I’m an addict / To my everlasting sadness,” they coo luminously. Then there’s the radiant folk piece “Bugs,” a transcendental prayer that enmeshes their feelings of alienation with a spiritual merging with nature.
Yet for all its pained introspections and surreal lyricism Forest (Monsters Live In The Trees) is not without reminders that Black Polish favors the rousing sentiments of a driving anthem. There’s the kinetic percussiveness of “Birthwright,” pummeling away to punctuate their pleading wails to a higher power: “Give me purpose / I’m more than just a shadow of an empty person.” On “Void” they meld pop-punk rhythms with folk acoustics to create one of the record’s roiling moments of catharsis as they lucidly excavate all the shortcomings and anxieties that have latched onto them.
That same fierce honesty fuels the propulsion of drums, bass, and glimmering piano keys that resound on the macabre and regret-filled “Graves.” It all culminates toward the album’s gloaming outro “Purple Skies ,” a thrumming and agitated reckoning that boils over in frustrated anger, with Black Polish teetering between despair and scant hope. Not only is Forest (Monsters Live In The Trees) a testament to the unrelenting vulnerability of their songwriting, but it also affirms their talent for entangling those withering introspections within an alluring array of genres.
Words: Steven Ward
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Listen to Forest (Monsters Live In The Trees) the new album from Black Polish below!
