Indigo De Souza: On the “Precipice” of a New Sound
To some, Indigo De Souza’s* last album, All of This Will End, was one of the biggest let downs of 2023’s release cycle. All of This Will End was the followup to Any Shape You Take, the album that arguably launched her from bubbling indie artist to alternative rock’s next female icon. Simply put, De Souza’s most output over the last five years has charted an interesting path for her critically. Her latest album, Precipice, faced much anticipation. Will this new project continue the downward slope of All of This Will End? Or will Precipice prove naysayers wrong?
Well, at the very least, Precipice is a definitive step in a new direction for De Souza. Previously, De Souza primarily used the standard instruments of the rock genre to back her soaring vocals. This gave De Souza her aforementioned alternative rock label, but Precipice backs away from this established instrumentation. Most songs on the new album lean towards a more pop sound, with synthesizers present on almost every single track. Electric guitars, organic drums, and heavy bass lines aren’t necessarily absent from Precipice, but while these instruments encapsulated the large majority of De Souza’s previous sound, they only flitter into the background of tracks to add texture. Precipice may be a large departure from De Souza’s previous sound in this regard, as the album as a whole features different instrumentation than what is associated with De Souza. But Precipice merely continues down a path that All of This Will End established. In fact, Time Back, the opening track of All of This Will End, essentially introduced this new pop forward version of De Souza. These pop tracks were tempered with standard De Souza alternative rock, but the All of This Will End ultimately feels like an unfinished experiment rather than a planned out album in part because of this split in genre.
Precipice also marks De Souza’s first album not released under indie label Saddle Creek. De Souza released her breakout album I Love My Mom with Saddle Creek, with her first original project away from the label since signing with them releasing in September 2024. De Souza’s new label is Loma Vista Recordings, notably founded by former Warner Bros. Records CEO Tom Whalley. Loma Vista is distributed by UMG, thereby making Precipice De Souza’s first full length album outing into the major labels. While All of This Will End clearly establishes that De Souza has wanted to experiment with pop instrumentation for some time, the switch from Saddle Creek to Loma Vista may have been the push De Souza needed to commit to this new sound.
But though Precipice may be different instrumentally from De Souza’s previous output, her lyrical themes remain largely unchanged. De Souza has always ruminated on relationships, her songs often feeling like confessions. Her previous instrumental sound heightened these raw emotions with grit and fuzz. This angsty edge still finds its way into Precipice through the utilization of synthesizers. Rather than sounding rageful, the repetitive nature of the synthesizers in songs like Be My Love and Dinner give both songs an almost resigned feeling, with De Souza turning over her emotions in her head. Yet other songs on Precipice finally see a sort of shift for De Souza. Not Afraid is a firm declaration of hope and a change in perspective. Be Like the Water affirms this shift, naming a specific direction that De Souza has decided to take on.
For De Souza fans wary about this change in sound, there are still tracks that act as a middle ground between All of This Will End and Precipice. These fans should turn to Heartthrob, Clean It Up, and Heartbreaker, which elevate electric guitar, drums, and bass, to the foreground of instrumentation. Fans also have De Souza’s mother, artist Kimberly Oberhammer, to thank for Precipice’s album cover. Oberhammer did the art for all three of De Souza’s previous albums. While parts of Precipice remain the same, it seems that this new shift in sound will continue for De Souza. Two friends of mine, who caught De Souza when she performed at Western Washington University in November ‘24, told me that she had performed Not Afraid during her set. As mentioned, Not Afraid is an incredible marriage between De Souza’s new instrumentation and themes of hope with the grit of her old sound and perspectives on relationships. If De Souza had been confident enough to tour songs off Precipice eight months before the album’s release, it's clear that De Souza is dedicated to this change and wants it to succeed. De Souza is finding herself, and in turn, experimenting with a new sound. These two paths of self discovery intertwine, almost as though De Souza’s new identity is the new sound itself. If Precipice is the, well, precipice of this new version of De Souza, it’s certainly worth time, attention, and at the very least, a listen. Anyone hoping to hear these new tracks and De Souza’s new sound live can catch the Precipice tour starting in Columbus, Ohio, on October 18.
*De Souza uses “she/they” pronouns. This article uses “she/her” for consistency.
