NEW ALBUMS
BNNY Everything
Chicagoans’ debut is one raw reckoning with grief
FIRE TALK
7/10
As the name implies, Bnny’s debut album contains multitudes. Written partly during a tumultuous relationship and partly in its aftermath, following the death of songwriter Jess Viscius’s partner, the album tracks a cycle of love, loss and grief in confessional vignettes. “Ambulance” is a foreboding opener, with its whispered prayer of a refrain: “If I can’t see, then no-one dies”. The ‘before’ is fractious, two-chord Velvet Underground cool – the sultry “August”, the minute-and-a-half burst of “Time Walk” – the ‘after’ like eavesdropping on something private. Viscius’s vocals cleave so close to the bone the lyrics emerge only in snatches: “forgive me”; “open your eyes”; “please stay”.