words

Artist: Sloppy Jane
Album: Madison
By Jackie Pierce

Sloppy Jane’s second album, Madison, made headlines for the location of its recording: a cave, specifically the Lost World Caverns in West Virginia, but the chamber pop album’s unique setting serves as much more than just a publicity gimmick. Madison’s gorgeous sweeping orchestrations are given a deeply complex sound, and the cave creates the perfect ambiance for the auditory and visual concepts created by the songs and music videos. With its unnerving strings compositions and mentions of death in nearly every track, Madison feels at times more like a horror film score than a rock album. The rock orchestra of Sloppy Jane is led and conducted by Haley Dahl, who serves as both band frontwoman and creative director. While often leaning on complex and dark imagery, Madison remains rooted in Dahl’s story of heartbreak. Its dramatic orchestra and Dahl’s striking, yet ethereal vocal performances work to convey the album’s theme of personal horror stories like unrequited love, death of loved ones, trauma, and abuse. As Sloppy Jane moves away from its punk roots into a more avant-garde orchestral style, they have created an album that truly sounds like no other this year.