Allie X is one of those musicians you feel has been around for much longer than she really has thanks to a breadth of work that does not include solely studio albums, but also a number of EPs steadily released since 2015 that have reinvigorated her already memorable material. Thus it might bear reminding that Cape God is only Allie X’s second studio album, yet it is as though she has taken the same grand leap as Lana Del Rey from the semi-puerility of Born to Die to the more tragedian nature of her sophomore record, Ultraviolence. The inspiration for the thematic content and visuals (manifest in videos for singles like “Regulars”) stems from Steven Okazaki’s 2015 documentary Heroin: Cape Cod, USA.
A tale of youths in the famously affluent Cape Cod community being more concerned with shooting up than shooting into the stratosphere of the potential that’s been given to them, Allie X took the fentanyl abuse phenomenon to heart in her songwriting as she considered all of her own suppressed angst from her younger years.
Creating a moody universe with the help of producer Oscar Görres (who also produced tracks for MARINA’s Love + Fear, a tour for which Allie X opened in 2019), the gray, macabre tones of a life spent at the mercy of a needle shine through on the bleak yet bright opening track, “Fresh Laundry.” The dichotomy of it matches the same one befalling privileged children who can’t help but feel blithe about throwing it all away. As a result, there’s an undeniable yearning for the innocence of childhood, of that comforting feeling so many rich and middle class kids have of being “taken care of.” The scent of fresh laundry, whether blowing in the breeze, or being drunk in from the inhalation of the lingering effects of fabric softener is Proustian in its ability to take one back to a time when it was all so simple. When one was taken care of and still as pure as that fresh laundry in question. So it is that Allie X muses, “I want to be near fresh laundry/It’s been too many years of not folding…/I want to attend nice parties/’Round my neck and head, thin jewelry.” For yes, there is comfort, too, in the frivolity of East Coast wealth–that is, before it starts to feel hollow enough for one to turn to fentanyl as a source of solace.
And, of course, once a person begins down that track (mark), it becomes like the “Devil You Know,” fittingly the second track on Cape God. Applying to one’s vices and demons in general, it also holds a very tailored meaning to anyone who suffers from drug addiction, with Allie X rueing, “I think I made a big mistake/You keep messing with my brain/You tell me eat the whole cake, it’s what I deserve/Every time I take your lead, feels like a curse/And every time I try to stop, feels even worse.” Yes, there’s no worse feeling than having the devil constantly perched over your shoulder telling you what to do, having it feel “amazing” in the moment and then experiencing the immediate sentiment, “I’m a piece of shit” thereafter. And “Devil I Know” is a song that perfectly encapsulates that.
To be sure, being weak-willed and prone to poor decision-making is part and parcel of what makes one human. An average human at that. This much is grudgingly conveyed on “Regulars,” on which Allie X expresses wanting to break free from the mold of society and its encouragement of mediocrity (drug-taking included), yet, at the same time, the desire to feel as though one belongs can become overpowering enough to convince you to stamp out all signs of your “different-ness.” Accordingly, Allie X commented of “Regulars,” “[It’s] about trying to reintegrate into society when you’ve been an outsider all your life. Trying to fit in when you clearly never will. Wanting to fade into the background but also wanting so badly to be seen. I have felt, at most points in my life, like I want to fit in and ‘be good’ for the sake of myself and the sake of others, but it’s never that simple. This song is a musing on giving up who you are, and how ‘fun’ that might be. It is sarcastic and very truthful at the same time.” Yet it’s harder to reintegrate into society once you’ve gone down fentanyl’s rabbit hole.
With a title that vaguely recalls Britney Spears’ “If U Seek Amy,” “Sarah Come Home” radiates the vibe of a girl who has disappeared into the ether of her own dangerous pleasures. Whether that’s drugs or sex or both is at the listener’s discretion. Set to the tune of an upbeat dance rhythm, it layers the song with added irony as Allie X sings, “You can’t change her, I never tried to/I wanna save her, but what can I do?…/I know you’ve got places that you run away to/Leave little traces so I can find you/I left a light on for you Sarah, won’t you come home?” Chances are, she’s probably too far gone in every sense to bother with such foregone notions as “home.” The sardonically cheerful aura persists on “Rings a Bell,” a track that Allie X admits to being a sort of mashup of Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Evoking the hazy intuition that comes with reckoning that maybe you’ve been to this place or seen this person before, it is one of the more psychedelically-affected cuts on the album, with Allie X serenely crooning, “The way you move, it rings a bell/The way you stare, it casts a spell/As if you knew me well/Must have been a reason for this feeling ’cause it rings a bell/Could swear that we’ve been here before.” And, of course, there’s always the potential that one has, particularly when a drug-addled constant is at play. The ambient groove that mimics the sensation of surrender continues on “June Gloom.” More than just a portrait of fentanyl users sequestering themselves inside in front of a blank screen, the song is written from the perspective of Allie X as an adolescent, forced to stay inside due to an autoimmune disease as all the other kids ran about flirting, taking drugs and generally being “cooler” than she was from her post within the walls of her bedroom. This lifelong insecurity about being an outsider has been a large part of why her brand of pop music is so unique. And perhaps even more accessible to a larger audience not usually open to “straightforward” pop in the style of, say, Katy Perry (who, unfortunately has slightly tainted Allie X by praising her).
The dreamy “Love Me Wrong” featuring Troye Sivan (the boy who loves to be featured–hear: “Dance To This,” “1999,” “2099,” et. al.) sounds like a peaceful comedown from a heroin fix, with a lulling musical background that iterates the sadness of being loved by a parent at the baseline level of obligation, but not necessarily for the person one truly is. With such a heavy motif at play, it’s no wonder there’s an undeniably preponderant feeling to the song, of which Allie X ruminates, “‘Love Me Wrong’ is a very personal song for me, which deals with the confusion and hurt associated with familial love. Mostly taken from feelings I had when I was younger, this is a song about being misunderstood by the ones closest to you. You know that they love you, but you feel it isn’t for the full person you are. The relationship between a parent and child is so intense and layered, that it was liberating to put it into the simple phrase ‘you love me wrong’ and repeat it over and over in the chorus. I hope that those of you dealing with similar feelings can find solace in this song.”
Tempering the weightiness of “Love Me Wrong” is the cheeky “Super Duper Party People,” a light-hearted number one envisions soundtracking the background of some teen party in a Netflix series as Allie X chirps, “Don’t stop the music/I don’t wanna lose it/My mind’s polluted/All I’ve got is the music.” It’s arguably the most “Euro” song on Cape God, but still very much in keeping with creating the empty La Dolce Vita atmosphere of a drug-fueled existence. The slow-paced yet rhythmic “Susie Save Your Love” features the lately elusive Mitski (best known for “Nobody”), whose vocals harmonize seamlessly with Allie X’s as they wax poetic about the sad soul that is Susie (who would likely be good friends with the aforementioned Sarah). For, like so many girls, she seems to believe in settling for anyone who gives her the time of day, often the emblem of a self-destructive person. But Allie X and Mitski urge her, “Save your love for someone like me/You don’t have to be a part-time/Susie, save your love, and take mine from me.” So maybe there’s hope for her yet. Then again, she’ll probably get knocked up by a junkie in an alley.
An “event” that can also happen to any “Life of the Party,” the song that serves as a reminder to those drinking and drugging themselves to a state of being “naturally” sociable that it comes at the price of not really being yourself, of sacrificing your pure and genuine Dr. Jekyll for the Mr. Hyde that everyone likes to be scandalized by. Which is how one ends up getting made fun of while they’re blacked out or passed out, the evidence only showing up on the internet the next day, hence the lyrics, “I was the life, was the life of the party/They wrote that out with a sharpie/I made so many friends/I was the main attraction.” While Allie X has certainly experienced this in her own grapplings with trying to fit in via the common numbing agents we all use, she takes it to an nth degree, commenting, “It’s based on the idea of being at a party or in a social setting and being completely inebriated to the point where you come out of your shell and you feel like you’re part of the group. But, at the same time, there’s a part of you–even in your state–that knows you’re not, and that you’re actually being made fun of.”
Maybe that’s why it’s better to have the amorphous, blending in qualities of a “Madame X” (not unlike the characteristics of Madonna’s own spy-themed persona of late), the second to last song on Cape God. One that imagines our album’s Crewdsonian heroine walking into the freezing cold water of the cape, Virginia Woolf style. Except instead of drowning, she simply stands there, feeling nothing at all. The droning of the lyrics, “Madame X/Take my money, my self-respect/When you come around, nothing hurts/You and me, we don’t need no words/Madame X/You fill me up with your emptiness” connotes that the “X” in this equation is one’s numbing agent of choice.
Even so, Allie X chooses to conclude the record on a more positive note, with “Learning in Public.” An endeavor she’s been grappling with since first entering more concretely into the limelight. As though addressing both fans and critics, Allie X sings, “I didn’t mean to change without letting you know/I felt that I could take, take you with me/But did you slip away or did I let go?” With Cape God, it comes across as the latter, with Allie X letting her guard down completely to get as honest as possible about her emotions. That it’s framed within the lens of an almost MARINA-esque alter ego (see: Electra Heart) inhabiting the fentanyl “fantasy” of an East Coast wasteland makes Cape God all the more groundbreaking.
