IAN SWEET finds solace in the mess of life on SUCKER

A lot of times, it feels like for every three steps forward you take you end up slipping two steps back, a crushing cycle that makes finding a way out feel impossible. However, IAN SWEET (Jilian Medford) uses the gentle signs of transformation she finds as the basis for SUCKER, a record that’s synonymous with resilience.

Over ten tumultuous tracks IAN SWEET blends endearing indie-rock with the endorphin rush of power-pop. Medford repeatedly allows her gut feelings to serve as her guide, even if it leads to heartbreak like on the title track where over wispy keys she admits, “I’d be a fool to love you / but I do it anyway.” She doesn’t run from devastation, rather she faces it head-on through dulcet yet dazzling moments of self-reflection. Medford permits herself to feel everything, even when it’s excruciating, like the anthemic early single, “FIGHT.” There’s this glimmer of hope she finds within herself, a promise that sometimes you have to cry all night before you can end up dancing in the headlights.

This understanding that you can’t win them all, but you can put up a hell of a struggle, is what makes SUCKER so real and so raw. She takes the tragic moments and the flashes of euphoria in stride. A fitting follow-up to 2021’s Show Me How You Disappear – written about a mental health crisis and her subsequent healing process – Medford knows that recovery doesn’t happen instantaneously. She acknowledges that it’s a journey without a concrete conclusion, sometimes it feels like the sugary-sweet rush of synth-heavy “Your Spit,” and sometimes it’s the delicate despair that decorates “Slowdance.”

There’s a reason that “Clean,” a song that glows with gentle acoustics, doesn’t close out the album-the truth is perfection isn’t the final lesson. Life, just like SUCKER, is a series of making messes, cleaning them up, and doing it all again. It’s a bricolage of the exhilarating hooks that adorn “Smoking Again” and the sobering lessons that define songs like “Emergency Contact.” However, despite the love, the loss, and all of the times she’s had to start again, IAN SWEET keeps her head up and her heart open, which is truly a testament to her tenacity.