On My Tombstone There Will Be a Name, a Date, and a Blue Jay by Tumor Girl

Some of us had a rough summer, the type of summer that results in a deeply confessional slowcore album like On My Tombstone There Will Be a Name, a Date, and a Blue Jay by Tumor Girl. Described by the artist themselves as a coming-of-age story, the record deals with the themes of identity loss, nostalgia, and deeply flawed romance that oftentimes define adolescence. Occasionally, Tumor Girl gets the self-awareness to realize that they’re emotionally in over their head, that in reality it may not be all that deep, but these thoughts of course fall by the wayside as soon as another internal tragedy strikes. Musically, On My Tombstone makes excellent use of bedroom recording techniques to make a sound as intimate as the lyrics are, sticking mostly to a core of guitar and vocals to create a singer-songwriter sound that pulls from slowcore and antifolk. So young and so frighteningly aware of death, the voice on this record will stay in your head long after you hit the end of its brief three song run. -Michael