“Faultlines,” the sophomore album from London-based Pisgah, is a controlled demolition. This is the moment where Brittney Jenkins, the singular force behind the moniker, plugs her Southern Gothic soul directly into a Marshall stack and lets the feedback of a fractured life roar.
Jenkins, a Southern American export who’s called Greater London home since 2015, has been brewing this storm for a decade. Her 2022 collection, Call Louder for Me When You Call, showed a rebellious spark, but “Faultlines” is the full-blown inferno. Recorded in the solitary confinement of her attic home studio, these tracks are intimate diaries scorched by electric fire. She’s done tiptoeing around the collapse; now, she’s mapping its epicentre with distortion and grace.
The title says it all. This album is tectonic. It’s about the emotional disasters that fracture a life, the personal upheaval that shatters your foundation. Jenkins, a tarot practitioner, likens the journey to the Tower card—catastrophic destruction that clears the bullshit to make room for what’s real. You can hear that brutal, necessary shattering in the music. This ain’t whining; it’s the steady, eyes-wide-open report from the front lines of a breakdown, set to a soundtrack that’s haunting and heavyweight.
The opener, “Cumulonimbus,” feels exactly like its namesake: heavy, luminous, and charged. The percussion hits quicker than a panic attack, but there’s a peppier release, a sense of riding the lightning. Tracks like “Favor” get deliberate and curt in their attack, with chord progressions that are almost rude in their expressiveness. Jenkins digs into a lower vocal register here, letting unique melodic lines in the chorus go through. With minimal chord progressions, the drums and vocals lock into a tense, fascinating duel.
But the real face-melter is the single “Bend to Break.” This track is a goddamn monument. Lush guitars swell like a storm on the horizon before absolutely BREAKING over thunderous drums. It’s alt-rock rooted in the Americana she grew up with, but it’s been put through a wringer of personal history. It’s about the mix of devastation and freedom when you finally stop living in someone else’s story.
She flips the script on “Bone to Pick,” addressing bold predicaments with gentler, almost deceptive instrumental parts, proving her songcraft isn’t a one-trick pony. Then she dives into darker pop waters with “Splintering.” A minor chord progression opens this beast, revealing rougher edges. It’s got that Nine Inch Nails-esque darkness but with a weird, glowing halo of hope around it—actual contours that colour a track with purpose. The album closes with the one-two punch of “Out of the Gate” and “Song for Jason Molina,” reverberating with stellar songwriting that stands miles apart from machine-generated pop sludge.
Credit for the album’s massive, yet intimate sound goes to the alchemy between Jenkins and producer Dan Duszynski (Loma, Jess Williamson), who mixed and mastered this beauty remotely from Austin, Texas. He gave these home-recorded tracks a professional polish that amplifies their raw power, not sanitizes it.
“Faultlines” is the sound of an artist finding her true power in the wreckage. Brittney Jenkins isn’t only documenting the break; she’s raising the volume on the strange, fertile geography that grows in the cracks. Turn it up until the walls shake. Pisgah will be pleased.