Bats, the brainchild of Nashville-based musician and woodwork Jess Awh, is back with her latest single “Going For Oysters,” a precursor to her forthcoming album, Good Game Baby. The release opens on a parade of intrusive thoughts, as Awh asks questions ranging from “Does it hurt when you go blind” to “Can you tell when you lost your mind?” to “Does dementia feel like clouds / In your head that your brain can’t get around?” in her chilled-out monotone. Awh then laments, “Why do I Google things like this?” Relatable, right?

The song transitions into a narrative as the chorus takes hold, with Awh crooning, “We go down to the fun part of town / Where you treat me to things I can’t afford / You’re the loser and I’m a pariah / But I never like to keep score.” The singer-songwriter is open about the fact that her music often explores real-life relationships and situations. In a statement, she shared that this release explores “the realities of old age and death as you step into young adulthood—while involved in an unlikely relationship with someone much older and more jaded about those things.” “Going For Oysters” succeeds in exploring the shock and dismay that comes with getting older, made more meaningful through the lens of this relationship with someone who is even further down the road in life.

That said, while “Going For Oysters” may be characterized as confessional songwriting, Bats maintains a detached, almost resigned attitude that refuses any attempts for sympathy. Awh‘s ability to self-mythologize in this way transforms even the most specific or mundane details into meaningful ideas. This skill makes Awh a master songwriter, as she continually shares deeply personal anecdotes that drip with universality.

We fell in love with Bats on our first listen of their sophomore album Blue Cabinet, which was released last year. While Blue Cabinet embraced the alt-country twang one might expect from a Nashville-based musician, “Going For Oysters” peels back the layers to reveal a grittier, alt-rock side of Bats. The song features distorted guitar, hoarse harmonies, and a textured pedal steel that gives the track an edge. In this way, Bats navigates a landscape inhabited by the likes of Ratboys, Deer Scout, and Kate Davis, marking an exciting new direction for the singer-songwriter.

Beyond this slight genre shift, Bats has resisted the temptation to drastically switch up her sound as she moves into her third full-length record. Instead, “Going For Oysters” leans into the things that have been successful on past projects. Bats has always had a gritty, homemade quality, and this release is no exception. In fact, “Going For Oysters” was recorded live, as it was literally homemade in Awh‘s own house. Isn’t that how great music is made? What could be better than a group of friends and collaborators inhabiting a space, creating something that sounds really, really good? “Going For Oysters” is further proof that Bats is one of the most exciting and human acts releasing music. While we wait for Good Game Baby, check out “Going For Oysters” below.

Bats is an unreliable narrator. On “spinnerbait,” lead singer and songwriter Jess Awh admits it herself, singing, “I was always kind of a liar.” Over the course of her sophomore album Blue Cabinet– a tour-de-force that spans nine songs– the singer-songwriter is prone to such bald, self-deprecating confessions. In just 35 minutes, Awh encapsulates the complicated feelings about growing up– all of the nostalgia, placelessness, regret, blame, and wisdom that comes with navigating one’s early 20s. Blue Cabinet is the coming of age album that you didn’t know you needed, delivered with the seemingly casual, often gritty, and constantly surprising sound that fans have come to expect from the Nashville-based musician.

The mastermind of the solo recording project is Jess Awh, a writer, musician, and recording artist based in Nashville, TN. Her debut album There’s a river up high, released in 2020 on Citrus City Records, was a lilting, staticky, deeply emotional introduction that revealed Awh‘s talent for creating unspeakable sadness within the space of a single lyric. Many of the same elements appear on Blue Cabinet: Awh still has a penchant for the pedal steel guitar; She remains unafraid to stick bizarre, indistinguishable samples into any given track; and Bats‘ music continues to revolve around skillful lyricism. However, Blue Cabinet shows noticeable growth. The sound is cleaner and the themes are more focused. That said, Bats (thankfully) doesn’t leave behind the chaos that made There’s a river up high so poignant and enjoyable. Blue Cabinet is still messy, but it’s a manageable mayhem.

From the jump, Blue Cabinet sucks in listeners with relatable lyrics dipped into indie folk melodies. Opening track “New Job” is a devastating glimpse at what it means to be young and yet still miss the past. Awh sings, “Why can’t we just go to the mall / And get our old jobs back / And work across the hall from each other again / Get off at six o’clock / Jump into your car / And drive ’til Old Hickory Boulevard ends.” Buttressed by melancholy synth and wobbly guitar, the song is a lo-fi look at what it means when your friends have moved on.

This concept of growing out of friends comes up again in the album, though Awh is not always on the mourning side of a lost friendship. On “cooking with sarah,” Awh explores a relationship that she has abandoned. In a kinetic track featuring gang vocals, ambient party noise, and trilling piano, Awh muses coldly, “Sorry if I’ve changed / I just couldn’t stay the same / As when my world revolved around / Running away from you.” This line comes right after the friend featured in the song shares that her dog died over Thanksgiving. Bats’ ability to portray the devastation of missing someone along with the callousness of being missed within the span of a few songs is indicative of her reach as an artist.

That said, Blue Cabinet is not just an album filled with fluffy musings on the passage of time. Bats confronts more serious topics. Track “Golden Spoon” is an upbeat song that portrays a bleak situation: A friend has fallen into drug addiction. Over a loping pedal steel drum and bright strings, Awh croons, “Gold spoon / Sitting in your hand / I never watch while you / disappear, I understand / How it feels to be right where you belong… But your eyes are gone.” Later, she continues, “Lying on the floor with you reminds me of when / Your father drove us down to the lake / The wood is full of holes like the one in his boat / You’re too high like the dock in the rain.” Bats jolts from experiencing a high friend to a memory with their dad within seconds, juxtaposing the past and the present so fluidly that they become one.

In fact, devastation and destruction are never far away. On the cheeky second track “We all miss football season,” Bats morbidly proclaims, “If I saw you bleeding out I’d / Count the hours till the sheets turn red / Nothing’s wrong until I prove you dead / And I don’t wanna try.” Later, on “spinnerbait,” Awh sings, “Tell me that it’s over the body’s in the lake / Details of the murder written on your face / Lookin for a place where I can get lunch with you.” There it is again– This violent language quickly followed up with a casual, relatable statement. Blue Cabinet is rife with destructive concepts placed against a languid, indie-folk soundscape, a field of landmines ringed with dandelions and lemonade stands, the scary sitting next to the familiar.

More than anything, the record is incredibly beautiful. Standout tracks like the breathtaking “Pillow Street” or Phoebe Bridgers-esque “Signal Ridge” reveal Awh‘s prowess as a solo artist. Her vocals are never over-the-top and her lyrics remain local, but her passionate singing cuts deep and her sentiments are somehow incredibly universal. Listening to Blue Cabinet is like sitting up late into the night and telling a new lover every detail of your life so far. When the sun rises, you just want to linger. You wish there was more to say.

Closing track “quonset hut” is a lugubrious lullaby, a melancholic ditty featuring lap steel and twangy synth that perfectly finishes out the release. As the song (and album) draw to a close, it does feel that we’ve grown up a little with Bats over the course of Blue Cabinet. In a final statement, Awh comes to a somewhat hopeful, somewhat fatalistic realization, “Miracles can happen when / There’s nobody around.” Emerging from the album, it feels that Bats has changed in some way. Maybe we have, too.