Album Review: Kississippi - Damned If I Do It For You

There’s no need to say sorry, so you say to me.

But I know it ain’t easy to love me—it’s harder now to breathe.

And this is, of course, indicative of a moment, certainly—and not like a very specific or singular moment, but more so of a time, and, like, fragments, or memories, pulled from around that time.

And it is also representative of something more than that, you see. Something personal—something that resonated deeply and still does—something that I find myself returning to and ruminating on regularly because, in the years leading up to it, I had not been certain how to articulate what I had been feeling, or giving consideration to—or, articulate it as simply, or effectively, or as gracefully, as it is depicted in a single line, from the opening of “Big Dipper.”

I know it ain’t easy to love me.

I will say that, and I have said that, often, to those who do love me—the people that I am closest to. That I know I am not easy to love. 

And yet. The people that I am closest to will, and have, politely disagree. 

Three years both feels like not all that long ago, and it also feels like a lifetime ago. Because I think about all of the lives I have lived, between then, and now. The ways that I have grown. The ways I have changed—for better, of course. And in some instances, of worse.

I think of the places where I have regressed or where there is always going to be room for improvement, however impossible it seems.

It is not easy to love me.

For about three years, I used to walk to work every day—roughly 15 minutes from the time I stepped out of my house, until the time I made it to the employee entrance. The walk there was never the problem. It was almost always the walk home that I didn’t dread, exactly, but it was something that I did not entirely look forward to either—coming at the conclusion of days that, toward the end, were longer than they should have been, and had become increasingly stressful and emotionally taxing. 

The walk there, though, often as the sun was rising, or, depending on the time of year, could mostly be in darkness, was a time for reflection, and it was a time that I did use to listen to a lot of music, as one might be apt to do, as they trudge down the streets and sidewalks in the quiet as the day is just finding its way. Sometimes, sure, I would listen to music for leisure, but it was, at the time, an opportunity to listen to something, closely, or with slightly more intention, for analytical purposes. 

And this of course indicative of a moment, certainly—and lot like a very specific or singular moment but more so of at time, and like fragments or memories pulled from around that time, and what I can remember is how many mornings I spent in August of 2021, during my walk to work, listening to Mood Ring, the second full-length album from Zoe Reynolds’ project Kississippi.

What I can remember is how many mornings I spent in August of 2021, during my walk to work, listening to Mood Ring—specifically the album’s stunning penultimate track, “Big Dipper,” and how transfixed I was by both the delivery of the words, and the words themselves, that appear at the very beginning of the song. 

I know it ain’t easy to love me.

*

On the Bandcamp page for Kississippi, Reynolds describes the project as “songs to yearn to,” which, for as smirking as it might seem, it is both concise and accurate—getting right down to what is at the heart of a lot the band’s material, both in the project’s overall tone, and in her songwriting.

Over the past few years, the longer I have spent both reading the published works of cultural critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib, and listening to the recorded output of Carly Rae Jepsen, I have found myself thinking about, and therefore, often writing about, as I am able to, the idea of “The Kingdom of Desire.”

And it has been pointed out to me, and rightfully so—I do acknowledge it, that I can take much longer than truly needed to explain something, or to tell a story. In conversation, or discussion, yes, I can see why that would be annoying. And, honestly, on the page—if I may break the fourth wall here, for as verbose and sprawling as I have become recently, in my analysis of pop music, I can also see why that would be annoying if you do not have the capacity for it at the time. 

So I will try, as I can, to describe this efficiently.

In her songwriting, or at least during the eras of both Emotion and Dedicated, Carly Rae Jepsen regularly wrote from a place of yearning, or of longing. From a place of strong desire. The songs were from the perspective of the chase—the object of affection that was just barely out of reach, for whatever reason. 

These songs, then, will stop short—she lives in a moment of wanting, but then we, as listeners, are rarely, if ever, allowed to know what, if anything, happened next.

The Kingdom of Desire.

Reynolds, as a songwriter, certainly on Mood Ring, and on the four songs that are included on her new EP under the Kississippi moniker, Damned If I Do It For You, also often writes, or exists, in that place of desire—that want. That longing. 

The aforementioned yearning.

While Mood Ring, played from beginning to end, could be viewed as a song cycle of sorts, loosely tracking a relationship, or a romance, from impassioned beginning to tumultuous and sorrowful end, the songs on Damned are coming from the place where that romance, or relationship, is over—the connection, between two individuals, might not still be there, or in one case, be as strong or functioning as it could be, but what you can hear is how the yearning, and the longing, are still very much present. 

Spanning a spry four tracks, Damned If I Do It For You arrives roughly three years after Mood Ring—that album, itself, was a huge sonic shift for Reynolds and Kississippi, which saw her moving beyond the kind of moody yet infectious but still very guitar-driven “indie rock” sound that surges through her debut, Sunset Blush, from 2018, and running head first into a glistening, technicolor pop inspired aesthetic. 

I did joke at the time, and I do hate that I make jokes like this, and yet, I still find myself writing them into things, that Mood Ring was the best Carly Rae Jepsen album that Jepsen did not release herself in 2021.

It is impressive that on Damned, even in just four songs, how much Reynolds has grown as a songwriter and front person over three years. You can hear the efforts put in to develop a kind of confidence and a savvy—both of which were certainly there before, but they are so much more apparent now—thriving, really, in her lyricism, yes, but also in just how these songs are constructed to be, even when there is the slightest of an inward or introspective turn, slices of dazzling, pure pop perfection.

*

I don’t think there is a place on Damned where Reynolds runs the risk of sounding like she is not having fun—even though the EP is bookended with its most melancholic songs; however, it is obvious that she is having an absolute blast making this kind of music on the middle two tracks—the slinking, shimmering, often bold post-disco grooves of “Last Time,” and the brash, clever, and lusty penultimate “Jesus Freak.”

“Last Time” was released as a single around a month and a half prior to the arrival of Damned in full, and comparatively to the other three songs it accompanies on the EP, it is the one that, musically, in its tone, is the most inherently connected to the material from Mood Ring—that is to say, the other three songs on this release are most certainly pop songs, but Reynolds does explore new, and in some cases, much bolder sounding territory. And even here, on “Last Time,” there is a tightness to how the song comes together—that confidence and savvy, rippling to the surface.

Some of the tightness, and confidence, may also come from Reynolds writing these songs with others—Maddie Ross and her spouse Sarah Tudzin (of the group Illuminati Hotties) are credited as co-writers on all four tracks from Damned, and Dan Campbell, of the emo outfit The Wonder Years is also listed as a contributor to “Jesus Freak.” 

“Last Time” begins with enormous, crisp-sounding percussion tumbling in, before giving way to a steady rhythm, big, bright blasts of synthesizers, and a funk-adjacent, rhythmic strumming coming from the electric guitar—Reynolds and her assemblage of musicians, including producer Andy Park on bass and keyboard, drummer Rachel Wild, and guitarist Joshua Hayes, know exactly what they are doing in how they play with the tension and release in the song. After the spiral and dazzle of the opening, the song is pulled back into a place of slight restraint, with the focus being mostly on Reynold’s vocals, as well as the rhythm and rumble of the bass line, with some sparse, dreamy guitar chords used to punctuate.

The release, then, comes when the song arrives at its chorus—huge, and based around an infectious melody, it everything a shout along chorus in a pop song should be. 

Musically, you can loosely connect “Last Time” to the more iridescent moments on Mood Ring, but lyrically, there is a kind of snark, at times playful, at times embittered, in the songwriting that was not really present in the past. 

As you can hear hints of in the EP’s opening track, “Smaller Half,” there is a little bit of an anthemic, or triumphant quality to “Last Time,” just in terms of how jubilant it sounds, yes, but also in the fact that it is a break-up song. But rather than ruminate on what was and no longer is, Reynolds is literally telling the off-stage character, and her antagonist, to kiss her ass goodbye. 

There is an ire and snarl to the way Reynolds walks us through the verses of “Last Time.” “Don’t know how it got this far—soft ghost in the blue light,” she observes in the opening line. “I don’t wanna dance no more—it’s not worth it.” 

She gets more specific, moving from ghostly metaphors and imagery to those of songwriting. “You don’t even know the words, but thanks for the insight,” she scoffs in the second verse. “Missed the chorus and the verse—I can’t stand it when I play our song you act like you don’t know me,” she continues. “But it makes no sense when you just said you love me. Guess the joke’s on me—but I don’t think it’s funny,”

The real smirk, before the chanting and vitriol of the bridge, comes in the way she lets her voice dip down into a drawl, and half-laughs, half sings, “I don’t think you’re funny, honey,” as a warning, almost, before taking us into the chorus again.

The chorus itself, lyrically, is just two lines that are repeated—but it is the empowerment behind them (“You just saw me for the last time”) and the way the band really just goes for it, in terms of making the chorus huge, and truly memorable, that allows it to be as fun as it ends up being, with all of the right elements tumbling together slowly, making something you cannot help but find yourself moving your body to, and singing along to almost immediately.

*

The EP’s third track, “Jesus Freak,” is probably the largest sonic departure for Reynolds on Damned If I Do It For You—a little scuzzier, or a little rougher around the edges, or maybe just a little louder than other Kississippi songs, it is a fascinating song that plays with pseudo-religious imagery within the backdrop of a seemingly volatile or at least a little dysfunctional relationship, and blending that all with a kind of palpable, lusty desperation. 

Even with its scuzzier or rougher edges, “Jesus Freak” is assembled around a very whimsical, or even cutesy sounding melody—initially plunked out on what sounds like a distorted and blown out keyboard tone, with the guitar and bass chugging along underneath it while the song, as a whole, swirls and builds momentum.

Like “Last Time,” “Jesus Freak” is put together in a way that uses its verses to operate from the slightest plate of restraint, with the real emphasis being on what occurs in the chorus, when the music is seemingly bashed out on the instruments, keeping that same melody though, that the song opens with, but making it much less chintzy or cute sounding, and much more aggressive and distorted in its tone—the crunching of the guitar chords, and the pummeling sound that the drums make, adding to the immediacy of the song’s conceit.

Reynolds’ voice, too, finds it way into the noise—her vocal track during the chorus run through a distorted effect, with the delivery during the verses remaining pristine, which given how vivid, and surprising some of the imagery within the writing is, creates a compelling juxtaposition between something beautiful and something uncomfortable. 

“I’m ripping pages from the Bible—you’re pissing all over the seat,” she begins, in the startling opening line of the song. “And I’m rolling us a joint, while you’re watching trash T.V.”

And there is, of course, a kind of want and desperation, from within this dynamic, that is depicted the further along we get into the song. “Laugh until we both doze off,” Reynolds observes, before capping it with, “But I’m waking up alone.”

The frustration, and want, is then blurred within the song’s short second verse, which depicts something much more outwardly lustful—“I’m in a dim-lit liquor aisle,” Reynolds narrates. “I’m eating candy cigarettes, while your hands are in my jeans.”

Within that give and take, or the frustration mixed with an insatiable desire, is the chorus—where it all kind of collides together within the wall of noise. “On my knees,” Reynolds exclaims, amid the crunch “Looking like a Jesus Freak. I’ve been weak—wishing you would come to me.”

The snarl, or ferocity of the song, or at the song easily ascends to, is something that Reynolds and Kississippi have not explored to this extent in the past—sonically, I can only describe it using what is seemingly a theoretical genre made up by the Spotify Wrapped of 2021—Bubble Grunge—just in terms of angst it treads while still remaining extremely accessible and infectious, giving space for these kinds of frustration born laments and observations to be made though as it propels itself into a growing cacophony, it provides Reynolds no easy answers, or resolution.

*

There’s a part of me missing without you

And there is, of course, a place where lust and sadness intersect, or overlap. Maybe that is surprising to you—or, maybe if you are chronically online the same way that I am, you understand, or at least are aware that you can both be sad, and still want to fuck. It isn’t the best place to be, emotionally—often confusing, or a little unsettling, but this kind of convergence of two things, coming from different ends, is, I think, a part of the human condition. 

Damned If I Do It For You is bookended with its two finest songs, even though, subjectively, all four songs on this EP are simply incredible—and both of these songs find Reynolds somewhere in that convergence. Maybe a little closer to the side of sadness, more than anything else, but there is still a desire, or a want, that is very present in both the anthemic opening track, “Smaller Half,” and the pensive, melancholic, and effacing “Bird Song.”

“Smaller Half” begins quietly, and from a place of reserve, with a quietly strummed electric guitar, and this mournful wailing noise that oscillates left to right, along with lightly plucked harmonic noises, cascading in delicately. The rest of the song’s instrumentation, then arrives with intention. There is the deliberate introduction of a bass drum thumping out a rhythm during the delivery of the first chorus—then pulling that away completely during the second verse, with the crisp, groove-ladened drumming rolling in as the chorus returns, and used as a means to build the second half of the song into something that does, even in the melancholy it finds itself circling the drain of, reach toward a powerful, and effecting place that is borderline anthemic, and triumphant—and certainly hypnotic in the way Reynold, as the song tumbles towards its conclusion, impressively overlaps two vocal tracks. 

Lyrically, with “Smaller Half” positioned as the opening track on Damned, Reynolds really sets a tone—taking us, almost immediately, into a very vivid, and tumultuous place where both longing, and sadness, are not so much converging, but colliding.

“I used to be somebody else,” Reynolds begins. “Keeping your name around my neck. Now I keep it to myself, like it’s a curse, and I’m bound to it.” 

“You broke my bones to make a wish,” she confesses in the second verse. “Left me with the smaller half. I’m too scare to love again,” she continues, before arriving at the difficult thing she must resign herself to when the chorus arrives once more. “Pick myself up and put the pieces back.”

I am remiss to refer to the pacing, and the way the words spill out and find their place within the rhythm, as unrelenting, because that simply is not the case. “Smaller Half” does work in a place of tension, or restraint, that does continue to build, but never like truly takes off, or gets away from Reynolds and the band. But she does lock herself into a mesmerizing, and pulsating groove with both the chorus, and what serves, I suppose, as a little bridge section.

“There’s a part of me missing with you,” Reynolds exclaims in the chorus. “But I’m better off. I’ll be fine without it. I guess I’ll move on if I have to,” she continues with a little trepidation. “Said you love me still—that you never doubt it.”

Reynolds continues using the evocative images, similar of the broken bone in the second verse, in the bridge, and also finds herself writing from a place of deprecation—something she did in a lot of the writing on Mood Ring, especially the further along in the album you got. “Every time you come around I’m back on the floor,” she utters both quickly and quietly while the music continues along steadily around her. “Gave you all I had and now you’re begging for more. Cut into the middle like nobody before, in two pieces.”

The way that both this alluring bridge, and the chorus, are then brought together, creates something that is a little disorienting, at first—and there is a hint of something jubilant, and self-aware, as if Reynolds is smirking at how impressive it is with these elements sliding together so effortlessly, and taking us to right to the end of the song. And not that Damned If I Do It For You was in need of some kind of definitive statement, especially within it opening moment, but “Smaller Half” is a bold, dazzling, and kaleidoscopic song that does show the development and confidence that are both very present in the songs that follow.

*

Tell me that you love me like it’s genuine.

And I talk about this often enough, especially in the last two years or so—about how it is maybe not my wish, exactly, but something that I do attempt, in writing about music, that I am able to describe an artist, and articulate what I wish to, without drawing a direct comparison to someone else. 

I say this though, perhaps as a means of softening the inevitable comparison, or evocation of the name of another, as a point of reference. 

I made the joke, in the summer of 2021, that because Zoe Reynolds had leaned so hard into a dazzling kind of technicolor pop inspired aesthetic, Mood Ring was the best Carly Rae Jepsen album that Jepsen herself did not release that year. 

Around the time that Mood Ring was release, and I guess I had not really thought about this until I was revising what I had written about, regarding that album, and how it might ultimately shape how I wrote about Damed If I Do It For You, I included a tweet from Reynolds that, in a sense, is similar to my own clunky attempt at a comparison.

She said, “Kississippi is Jimmy Eat World for Taylor Swift fans.”

Both of those artists named do, overall, and perhaps I am generalizing here, are responsible for the crafting of emotional music, and there is, perhaps, a place where the way those emotions are executed do overlap, slightly, but they are two artists that are operating from pretty different ends of contemporary popular music spectrum.

There is an earnestness, though, in the music Reynolds makes as Kississippi that I can see, and hear, more than anything else, appealing to listeners of both bands—even if her tweet may have been at least part in jest. 

Because everybody is ultimately emotional. And if you are pouring that emotion into something like writing pop songs, there is a fine line to walk between giving into melancholy, or sorrow, and still remaining accessible, or even catchy.

Reynolds walked that line very well on Mood Ring and if anything, Damed If I Do It For You is a collection, albeit a short one, where you can hear her really hitting a stride as Kississippi. And you can hear her, on the collection’s most somber, inward moment, calling back to the description of being “Jimmy Eat World for Taylor Swift Fans,” on the stunning closing track, “Bird Song.”

More pensive or inward turned, in tone, than “Smaller Half,” there is a stirring sense of “emo” adjacent theatricality or drama, akin to, yes, Jimmy Eat World, that Reynolds has woven into the fabric of “Bird Song.” Beginning with an acoustic guitar that is strummed with introspection, right away, there is something fascinating about the meticulous detail in the song’s production. It’s minor, or subtle, rather, but there is this slight warble effect that skitters through the strums of the guitar as “Bird Song” begins, with Reynolds working up to delivering the devastating opening line. 

As “Bird Song” collects itself, the slink pulls of the bass guitar course through toward the conclusion of the first verse, before the sharp hi-hat clacks and snare hits of the drum kit arrive at the beginning of the second—there is not exactly a “relaxed” feeling to the song, and how it is arranged, but there is a kind of quiet, leading up to a build and release as the chorus approaches—the kind of theatricality or drama does come in with the lower notes of the piano, finding their way in between Reynolds’ vocal delivery, clearing a path for the gentle, atmospheric layers that underscore the tension, and emotion of the chorus. 

There is a kind of slow-motion, delicate swirling beauty that Reynolds manages, seemingly with ease, to conjure in some of her material under the Kississippi moniker—the stunning “Big Dipper,” from Mood Ring, is certainly one of those moments, where all of the different parts of the song rush together to create something that is, in a sense, absolutely perfect. She repeats that here on “Bird Song”—specifically in the chorus. It is downcast and melancholic, yes—certainly the saddest song on the EP but that doesn’t stop it from being just so arresting in how gorgeous it all sounds. 

“Bird Song” is a place where Reynolds can show what a dynamic lyricist she is—yes, certainly there is humor, or a playfulness, or flirtatious nature to some of her writing on this EP, but not only is this the most somber in sound, it is the darkest, or bleakest, in terms of how inward she turns with her songwriting. I am a little remiss to say that Reynolds thrives in places where she is able to be self-effacing, because as a project, Kississippi is just so thrilling when it is bright, jubilant, and kind of lusty, or boiling over with a want and desire. 

Reynolds is at her most visceral in terms of self observation on “Bird Song.” “Standing in the mirror sticking out my lip,” she begins. “To see if I’m still pretty when I’m crying.”

“Lately, I’ve been looking at my skeleton to see if there’s still beauty in comparison,” she continues, before scoffing. “And it’s making me sick.”

The kind of palpable lust, or desire, that can be present in other moments on this collection, or found elsewhere in Reynolds’ songwriting, is absent, certainly, but the kind of urgent desperation to be wanted, though, is here—it’s those emotions that take over in the second verse when she pleads, “Tell me that you love me like it’s genuine.”

There is, of course, a starkness to these lyrics, with the dramatic, melancholic arranging underneath serving them well, but even in the faint shimmer, or dreamy kind of glisten that comes from where the instrumentation swells to in the chorus, it is offset by even darker and self-deprecating lyricism. “I’ve done a lot of damage but I’m still alive,” Reynolds explains, before asking, “Are you?,” then guiding us to the line where she utters the EP’s titular expression. “I’m damed if I don’t, and I’m damned if I do it for you.”

Mood Ring, in looking at it as an album put together through the beginning and ultimate end of a romantic entanglement, or a relationship, or whatever you wish to call it, ends with no real resolution—though, perhaps, at the end of that collection of songs, Reynolds was not looking for any resolve, or answers to questions. Damned ends, though, not abruptly, but the final moments of “Bird Song” bring us to something that will stay with you, or something that you do end up ruminating on, after the last notes evaporate. 

With, like, all of 20 seconds left in the song, Reynolds does not introduce a new idea, so much, as she delivers an epilogue of sorts: “Nothing’s left—I’ll blame it on my medicine,” she confesses, as the music around her begins to really wind down into the last notes. “To see how long it takes for this to settle in.”

These final lines, sung with a kind of exasperation or resignation, are cloaked in an ambiguity that, in contrast, but similar to the infectiousness of all four songs on the EP, does linger, or even haunt. 

*

I have been writing about music on the internet for over a decade, and at the end of each year, I spend large portions of November and December laboring over my “year end” lists—I stop short of saying they are lists of my “favorite” songs or albums from the calendar year, because there have been times when the list leans more into things that had the most emotional impact on me.

The year end lists present a challenge every time I assemble them, because I try to find a balance between things that I was impressed with in the moment, and things that I think will hopefully stay with me, and grow alongside me in the years to come, and there are some years, over others, where I am better at finding that balance. 

As 2021 came to an end, I was no longer walking to work in the morning, in the time when the sun was just beginning to rise, nor was I dreading the trudge home in the afternoon. I had left my job—a decision that was not easy to make but it was both for the best and should have happened a lot sooner than it did. 

I tell you all of that to tell you this—both Mood Ring, and “Big Dipper,” were included in the lists I had compiled at the end of 2021, of my “favorite” albums, and songs, respectively, of that year. And something that can be a favorite or be impactful, in some way, will be something that I return to in the years that follow—but Mood Ring is an album, from beginning to end, I do return to regularly, still finding it as dazzling and exuberant as I did the first time I heard it nearly three years ago.

And you would think that, maybe, I would associate that album, or at least some of the songs, with those morning walks to work, as I found myself ruminating on if I did wish to give notice, and depart from the place where I had worked for over five years, and from a job that I, at one time, did legitimately like. I do, in a sense. I hear the plaintive notes in the melody of “Big Dipper” and I think about what the sky looked like in the morning as the sun was just beginning its ascent, and what the late summer air felt on my face while walking.

Three years is both a long time, and not, and I would like to think that I have grown or changed, in some ways, from the person I was on those morning walks, and the person who was so unhappy, and angry all the time, they felt like they had to leave their job over it. But I also know that even if there has been growth and change, there are a number of ways I am still very much that person. 

More than that time, though, and recalling those walks, in the morning, as summer waned, what has kept me connected to the work of Zoe Reynolds over the last three years and what will keep me tethered it to for years to come is one of the lines that she sings in the opening of “Big Dipper.”

I know it ain’t easy to love me.

My instinct, as a fan, is to want more—to want more than four songs. But I realize that we should not ask for more than artists are willing to give. Because they do already give so much. A huge leap forward for Zoe Reynolds as a songwriter and performer, Damned If I Do It For You is bold—both in the fun it wishes for us to have, and the emotions it does ultimately wish us to experience, whether we are ready for them or not. 

It is also a perfect listen. At four songs, it never runs the risk of overstaying its welcome, with each song as enjoyable, if not more so than the song that came before it, making it a truly revelatory listen.

Reynolds’ utterance, or resignation, of feeling difficult to love has resonated with me, deeply at times, over the last three years, and in that difficulty, she says something here, on Damned, that I’ll be taking with me for a long time as well.

I’ve done a lot of damage. But I’m still alive. 

Damned If I Do It For You is available now to stream or download.