San Francisco’s Megan Slankard is indie in every sense of the word, and not only in the sound of her music. Along with her band The Wreckage, she has self-released five records to date and continues to slog it out on the road, playing everything from small clubs to putting in her dues as opener for larger bands.
More than 15 years after her debut, Slankard is continuing that indie ethos with her latest, California & Other Stories. The opening track, “California,” is a smart, biting break up diss track that would make Taylor Swift blush (“Did you get what you came for?/Did you get what you wanted?/Put a ring on her finger, and she might give you a daughter/Will it fix all of the problems you’ve had since you were in college”). What follows are nine more songs, sticking for the most part to relationships. Songs like “Magical Thinking,” about losing too much of yourself in a relationship, and the self-explanatory “I Want To Be Loved” tackle familiar but deeply relatable issues. The album closes on “Oil In The Ocean,” a hauntingly bittersweet ode to remembering a lost love with very specific lyrics. As the music swells the emotions are palpable here on Slankard’s most compelling vocal track yet.
Musically, she’s not afraid to show off more muscular guitars on songs like “They Gonna Talk” but also inserts orchestration into tracks like “Carl Sagan,” adding a welcome contrast to the more rock-focused songs here. Slankard co-produced this one with Nashville-based and sometime tour partner Alex Wong, (Delta Rae, Vienna Teng, Elizabeth & The Catapult). She also adds in some New Wave synths and electronic harmonies as well broadening her appeal throughout. While not a huge departure from the Indie pop sound she started more than a decade ago, California & Other Stories manages to be her most experimental record yet.
