Inspired by a documentary about the opioid crisis, the pop singer and songwriter dreams up a fictionalized shoreline town where decadence is fueled by deep-rooted melancholia.
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The glassine synthpop Allie Hughes crafts as Allie X often serves as a Trojan horse for the eccentric personas she invents. A classically trained singer, Hughes prefers characters and costumes, often donning bug-eyed sunglasses while performing songs that relish or wallow in being the outsider. On 2018’s Super Sunset, she vivisected life in image-obsessed L.A. through different female archetypes, resulting in a deft if interchangeable set that favored effervescent, ’80s-inspired pop. On its spirited follow-up, Cape God, Hughes heads to the East Coast for a more striking emotional reckoning, abandoning past alter egos and inserting herself in the troubles of a gloomy, fictionalized shoreline town.
Cape God was inspired by Heroin: Cape Cod USA, a harrowing 2015 HBO documentary about the effects of the opioid crisis on young people living in the seemingly idyllic Massachusetts vacation destination. The horrors of addiction surface in oblique ways here, but Hughes largely uses the documentary’s subjects as ciphers to reflect on memories of the inner turmoil she experienced growing up between Ontario and northwest Michigan. Cape God’s grim fables play out like a TV drama about debauched teens set to springy Max Martin-style production, setting stories of suburban excess to gothy synthpop and dramatic ballads.
The album’s fatalistic streak is familiar but compelling: Hughes dreams up a place where decadence is fueled by deep-rooted melancholia. She gets blackout drunk over handclaps and heavy synths on “Life of the Party,” where the propulsive backdrop feels at odds with the disturbing details: “Even when I nodded out,” she deadpans, “I was center of the action.” That kind of unflinching look at the abuse and depression borne of suburban ennui is a potent creative source for Hughes and makes for some of her most exciting work. “June Gloom” depicts the cold isolation of depression through fizzy electropop, and the swooning “Susie Save Your Love” zooms in on a main character who’s “too drunk to drive” and pining after a guy who doesn’t reciprocate. “Susie” is an especially bright highlight that features Mitski on vocals, though the two harmonize so closely that her appearance becomes almost anonymous.
When Hughes tries out more rote pop songs, Cape God can get a little dry. “Love Me Wrong” employs an acoustic guitar, a choir, and a sleepy-sounding Troye Sivan to sing about double-edged romance, but the belabored song comes off like an underwritten B-side. The self-effacing “Devil I Know” and “Regulars” are the most anodyne of the bunch, with similar plucked guitar lines and repetitive choruses—and worse, they’re sequenced back to back.
Still, the sad world of Cape God is an alluring one, and Hughes’ vocal range is its unequivocal linchpin. She shoots off staccato spoken word on the ironic “Super Duper Party People,” hopscotches over drums with a featherlight touch on the catchy “Sarah Come Home,” and drops to a smoky lower register on the cinematic “Madame X.” The latter song is where she makes the clearest gesture at the grim, all-consuming power of addiction: “Take my money, my self respect,” she sings over a swell of strings. “You fill me up with your emptiness and it’s the first thing I’ve ever felt.” It’s a despairing note, but it’s also one of Hughes’ starkest—a vivid rendering that establishes Cape God as the strongest concept in her catalog to date.