There’s a fine line between moving without a direction in mind and being directionless. Both routes are capable of yielding pleasant surprises, but only one will leave you feeling hollow and unsure. PEACE + WAR feels mostly directionless, full of fluorescent freakouts, head-scratching detours, and whispery meditations that bristle against each other. The songs that work best bloom patiently and methodically, using empty space as a tool and a weapon. Lead single “White Flag” opens spacious ebbs and flows between its breezy surf rock and punchy nightclub hysteria. That jubilant energy really comes into fruition on “Summer Song”—all BuzzBallz-glugging chimes, brisk snares, and sugary melodies—and “Mummy Daddy,” a smiley ode to gratitude and making your parents proud.
Even more affecting is “Happysad,” a heartbreakingly blunt meditation on mania. The gulfs between Maria’s plain, plaintive stanzas are filled with tender noise: warm, sustained synth notes, distant claps and taps, brittle harmonies. “I’m skinny/I’m so fat,” she sings, nose stuffy. “The weight on my shoulders/It’s getting too heavy.” Her soft choral layers descend to the earth like a stray feather; her shrieks saturate like fire alarms.
Manow has a way of making playground barbs and austere observations feel bigger than they are. Sometimes it’s silly and sometimes it’s grating, but often it’s a strong complement to her spirited, unadorned vocals. “The day you said you loved me/I hope you still know where/Week after then we moved in/We bought our bed and chairs,” goes the opening lines on the bitter breakup track “I Don’t Know.” When she opens “Summer Song,” she uses Polish adjectives to imbue the ecstatic feeling of seeing the sun again: “Wreszcie, błogie, piękne, senne…” (“At last, blissful, beautiful, dreamy…”). There’s sticky, lullabic immediacy in this moment that makes nostalgia feel like a tangible, elysian destination. PEACE + WAR strays off that track at times, which is deflating, but it hardly takes long for Bassvictim to find their footing again.
