The second full-length album from Julia Jacklin, Crushing, embodies every possible meaning of its title word. It’s an album formed from the sheer intensity of feeling, an in-the-moment narrative of heartbreak and infatuation. With her storytelling centered on bodies, crossed boundaries, and smothering closeness, Crushing reveals how our physical experience of the world shapes and sometimes distorts our inner lives. The follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2016 debut Don’t Let the Kids Win, Crushing finds Jacklin continually acknowledging what’s expected of her, then gracefully rejecting those expectations. As a result, the album invites self-examination and a possible shift in the listener’s way of navigating the world—an effect that has everything to do with Jacklin’s openness about her own experience.
