★★★★☆
There’s a point, somewhere elusive, where the most miserable hopelessness intersects with beautiful contentment. Indigo de Souza lives there, and All Of This Will End is a dispatch from this in-between world, in which she tries to impart a little of the wisdom she’s found from inhabiting this space.
Across her whole discography so far, which feels sprawling but actually just comprises two albums that pack more than their fair share of impact, she’s been charting a course through her own life’s journey. All Of This Will End stands on the shoulders of 2018’s I Love My Mom and 2021’s Any Shape You Take to reach gorgeous new heights.
Delivered in de Souza’s captivating, charismatic voice, All Of This Will End is saturated in something untouchable. Even at her most vulnerable moments, de Souza feels steadfast. This is pronounced in the record’s stunning lead single and album closer ‘Younger & Dumber’, which sees de Souza reflect on her past self with love, gentleness, pain and peace, above a sparse acoustic backdrop.
Her voice, her words, are piercingly central to the song, inescapably bleak and comforting all at once. It’s definitely a record of contradictions, but very deliberately so – fellow single ‘Smog’ dials up the guitar, fuzzes up the vocal, and throws some kitchen-sink poetics into the lyrics, yet remains as incisive and introspective in its indie-rock glory as the most melancholy de Souza can offer.
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De Souza oscillates between philosophical writing that feels like it speaks to some universal soul, and an effortless diaristic approach that has the same effect. Whether she’s singing “You can be a dick to me, that’s what I’m used to” on ‘You Can Be Mean’; “I don’t know how to tell you that your jokes aren’t funny” on ‘Smog’; or spinning a drifting tale of “That summer when we were young / you’d take me with that guy in his car” on ‘The Water’, De Souza taps into something eternally human.
Photo: Charlie Boss
Whilst it’s distinctly of this world, with images of self-checkouts, bedrooms and tarmac, De Souza’s spellbinding delivery elevates it to something beyond, her versatility enabling her to slip between desperate, powerful, relaxed and troubled all in mere lines of delivery.
This chameleonic emotional performance reflects the complexity of being, but she saves herself from panic with the comfort of the music, which is just as versatile, ranging from the ethereal, unsettling devolution of ‘Time Back’ to the almost Midwest-emo tinges on ‘You Can Be Mean’, the howling vivacity of ‘Always’, the coming-of-age sparkle of ‘Parking Lot’, and plenty more besides.
You could cherry-pick any number of moments, but the album shines brightest – blindingly so – in its entirety. Little that De Souza touches on throughout All Of This Will End is subject matter that’s actually possible to untangle. Instead, rather than attempt anything of the sort, De Souza has made an album that revels in the chaos and finds contentment in the unpredictability.
