On her second album CARE/TAKING, Los Angeles-based Jess Cornelius finds herself maneuvering and coping with life’s incessant shifts, clinging to love as both a compass and lifeline. Delivering rousing anthemics and simmering, poignant reflections that probe the sweeping distance that now lies between herself, her past, and the ones she loves. If you have a chance to catch her on any of her upcoming U.S. tour dates don’t dawdle on getting tickets — we expect her wayfaring, piercing songwriting, and galvanizing rock will hit ten times harder when you’re actually in the room with her.

Propulsive indie-rock that pulls zero punches

Across CARE/TAKING you’ll find yourself impelled forward by the urgency of its stirring soul-searching. The elastic tug of her bass-drum exchanges, a jaunt of haunting keys trailing in tandem, a burst of brass, and punchy rhythms that sting as well as uplift — the record is flecked with moments of callithumpian triumph that keep both you and Cornelius soaring.

But for all its rollicking catharsis, there are also plenty of moments that immerse you in the rapture of her equally revelatory slow-burners. Where smoldering riffs blink and glow, horns wailing, and synths gleaming, all of it building toward sizzling releases that evoke all the fiery yearning, regret, and heartache that floods her heart when looking back on a memory of herself, her life, that’s now perpetually lost to the past. This is the kind of indie-rock that ignites a fire in your belly via its honest eviscerations and undaunted, lingering kineticism.

A painful accounting of physical and emotional separation

On her debut album Distance, Cornelius navigated the untethered existence of a life split between two continents. CARE/TAKING reassesses her position now that she’s put down roots, unearthing in the process new misgivings and tensions. “All my life I’ve been moving away / Australia, America,” she coos in confession. “Every decade I keep getting further / But not because of lack of love for you,” she sings, sharing an overdue apology for every continental leap that’s been made, further sundering her from the people she loves.

The goodbyes extend also to her ex-lover and the father of her child. Encumbered by doubt and loneliness, Cornelius labors through to share a momentous plea for their mutual recovery. “Push your body through,” she whispers over the oceanic gulf. “Almost perfect / Almost like brand new.”

Immediately after, she shares another gutting face-off with separation, recalling the dissolution of desire she felt taking place during her pregnancy. “You said ‘Desire is stronger when somebody’s running away’ / But I’m having your child now and I can’t stand to play those children’s games,” her words teetering on the cusp of the heartbreaking realization that some growths don’t happen in unison.

A hopeful embrace of change and moving on

That’s ultimately the message of CARE/TAKING, a long-awaited second wind, rallying around the decision to not let life’s mercurial uncertainty keep you unmoored from happiness. Anchoring Cornelius through it all this time around is the love she has for her child. She might still be plagued by wearisome fears of loss, the kind that festers naturally alongside any attachment, but their relationship remains a buoying force.

“This love / This hurt / And I’d do it all for her / She’s a universe,” she sings at the start of the record. Oscillating between grandiose love and the worries that needle her heart, Cornelius tempers the existential anxieties of parenthood with a simple, searing conviction toward devotion to their daughter.

She spends the rest of the album confronting and traversing similar cycles of bliss and pain, love and heartbreak. As difficult as the act of moving on, it becomes a necessary, if not serendipitous choice between the past and the future. On “Dying,” that choice gives way to a stunned rediscovery of romance and passion, one that also doubles as an exciting flirtation with electro-pop balladry.

The album’s urgent wisdom is best encapsulated in one of its enduring lines — “People move on” — an obligatory reminder that Cornelius threads through all the transformations she’s hurtled. Nowhere is that sentiment more powerfully articulated than on the penultimate track of CARE/TAKING, which shares a vision of mother and daughter barrelling gleefully into the future together. Running alongside her child, lungs filled with liberated air, blood pumping through her veins, Cornelius elucidates hard-won reassurances that implore you to stay the course, to keep pushing forward.

Words: Steven Ward

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Visit Jess Cornelius on her website and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.

Jess Cornelius Tour
Thu. July 11 – Sacramento, CA @ The Starlet Room
Fri. July 12 – San Francisco, CA @ Kilowatt Bar
Sat. July 13 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Moe’s Alley
Thu. July 18 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza
Sat. July 20 – Portland OR @ Showdown
Thu. Aug 8 – New York, NY @ TV Eye
Fri. Aug 9 – Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse Music Hall
Sat. Aug 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ MilkBoy Philly
Sun. Aug 11 – Baltimore, MD @ OttoBar
Mon. Aug 12 – Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom