If you’re not a fully paid-up member of the Phoebe Bridgers fanclub, it can be difficult to see why she receives so much devotion from her army of mega-obsessed fans. Similarly, she’s got plenty of haters too, and largely, you wonder what their beef is, given she’s entirely avoidable – it’s not like she summons the kind of blanket coverage that some pop stars get.

With that, like a lot of musicians who have made it their stock-in-trade to bare all, albeit through codes and half-lines, Phoebe Bridgers is clearly someone who you get the most out of if you know the lore. There’s a lot of that going on at the minute, which for those standing on the periphery, makes some of the impact lessen.

We gather that there’s some dirty laundry being aired on ‘Lost Weekend’, about failed relationships and whatnot, but as we’ve not kept up with gossip columns and DeuxMoi posts, we’re instead left to focus on the vibe of the whole thing… and it’s… well… it all sounds rather insular and maudlin.

You wonder if Bridgers has been listening to the rural soundscapes of Ethel Cain while she’s been away making this LP, and the album swells between songs and sketches, with some of the quieter moments being barely audible. It’s a marked difference from her ‘Punisher’ period, where she went viral in part for smashing a guitar up, and for letting out a guttural scream on it. The album was an alt-rock success, and turned Bridgers into something of a celebrity. Here, she seems to be retracting from that somewhat, but you suspect it might be too late for her to move out of the public eye.

You see, whenever you drop morsels of interest about failed love – especially if that involves someone else who is a household name – you’re only going to entrench people’s interest in you, as this time, they’re allowed to stake sides and become invested in you like you’re a sports team.

If the last LP allowed her to let some angst out, this time, she’s dissociating. Maybe that’s completely relatable for her fans?

There is a personal bereavement to deal with, alongside lovelorn segments – and some of the greatest art ever made is about both of these things. In this instance, we find that it informs the sound we hear immediately.

From the off, we hear her voice electronically manipulated singing “crying in a suit and tie”, reminding us of ‘808s & Heartbreak’ and Imogen Heap’s ‘Hide and Seek’ – before she finds her way to some college rock number which briefly picks up the pace.

There’s country moments too, such as with the Goth-Twang of ‘The Governer’s Waltz’, but what is most prevalent is the dislocated sounds of everything that sits between the traditional songs, all drone electronics and unsettling pulses. Sometimes, the music becomes rather disorientating, but not full avant-garde that you’ll wonder where the hell it came from, unless you’re not used to That Kind Of Thing – this isn’t a free jazz album or anything – but it is certainly a brave move from someone who cleaned up at the Grammy Awards not too long ago.

While sonically different, you’re almost put in mind of the switch the Smashing Pumpkins made when they left ‘Siamese Dream’ and ventured into the ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ period – throwing the plaid shirts in the bin for some robes and bleached skin. Of course, there’s always been a market for the sensitive, disaffected kids out there who love to bathe in shared woe, but for the rest of us, it can wear a bit thin.

And maybe that’s the kicker – some people will just listen to this and this ‘oh for fuck’s sake, cheer up!’ and others will see the developing sound from her last solo record, and fully immerse themselves into this, like swimming in a pitch black lake.

The one-two lines of ‘big thing’ coupled with ‘self deprecating thing’ are as present as they were always gonna be, so the line: “I remember the day I created the world, I got blood on my favorite shirt” is either gonna make you break out in a grin or annoy the piss out of you. It’s kinda cool that there’s polarising artists out there in a musical landscape that feels so frequently a shade of landlord’s magnolia paint, but this isn’t doing it for us. Maybe it isn’t meant for us either.