Molly Drag

In practice, Molly Drag’s discography up to now has arguably fit the “bedroom” label by which it’s historically been tagged. While songwriter Hansford’s self-produced recordings across his prolific discography have explored a wide range of textures since he began the project in 2015, they’ve always served as a deeply personal – and immediate – method of catharsis. Songs were recorded quickly with whatever equipment was close at hand, takes were rarely belabored. The spirit, too, fit this descriptor – one got the sense that Hansford couldn’t afford to delay the relief of expressing his emotional turmoil, and his songs were consequently laden with a compelling urgency. His music typically read like dispatches from an ongoing private exorcism, fittingly becoming comforting points of reference for audiences wrestling with a similar darkness.

Mammoth – Molly Drag’s seventh LP – does the latter. Every one of the record’s nine tracks feels like a different kind of embrace, flourishing in sunlit, boundless space where Molly Drag once struggled behind locked doors. It’s a change you can hear beginning to take shape on his prior LP, 2021’s Resemble Another: “If Molly Drag was an old farmhouse full of dust, that record was me opening the windows and letting some fresh air in,” says Hansford. Mammoth delivers on that emergent spirit, relishing in a hard-won sense of lightness.