ANOHNI and the Johnsons: My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross Album Review

The latest iteration of the Johnsons consists of notable session musicians, including Brian Eno associate Leo Abrahams and drummer Chris Vatalaro. With a band this tight, fleshed out with horns from William Basinski and strings from Rob Moose (whose arrangements most directly recall David Van De Pitte’s laconic lines on What’s Going On), Anohni has room to improvise, stretching her voice in new directions. “It Must Change” and the gospel-adjacent slow burner “Can’t” capture Anonhi’s first vocal takes and actively benefit from that lack of fussiness—there are even some joyous ad-libs on the latter’s outro, in between cries of “I don’t want you to be dead!” For someone so famously meticulous—she’s attuned to the tiniest of changes in her sound mixes—the immediacy is invigorating.

The soothing and somewhat uneasy “It Must Change” steadily builds to its final blow: “No one’s getting out of here/That’s why this is so sad.” That line sums up one of the album’s major themes—taking stock of what we’re losing by continuing to exploit the environment. “Go Ahead” essentially dares those in power to fully destroy the world, capped by a lemur-sampling guitar freakout that would make Lou Reed proud. Then Anohni pays him tribute directly on the next song, “Sliver of Ice,” recounting a discussion in which Reed described the novel sensation of chewing ice. Even the simple joys are at stake.

As on previous records, Anohni eventually turns the gaze upon herself; it’s not necessarily tender, but it’s more compassionate than the way she’d ask herself, “How did I become a virus?” On “It’s My Fault,” she sings, “It’s my fault, the way I broke the Earth,” but leaves room to acknowledge both what she’s losing and her own complicity in its loss: “I ache here, I take here.” Several songs lament the feeling of being too immersed in capitalism to figure out a better path: “Now everything’s gone to the floor/And all I ever want is more.” Even though it’s no one individual’s fault, it’s hard not to internalize the propaganda suggesting otherwise. There aren’t any answers, and for an artist whose most enduring revelations are declarative statements (“I wanna see them burn,” “I’ll grow back like a starfish”), it’s a heavy adjustment.

The internal shaming makes the outward rage of “Scapegoat” all the more effective. On a rare song that explicitly, specifically attacks transphobia, Anohni woozily exaggerates her vibrato and steps into the role of her oppressors. Her narrator flips surface-level sentiments of support—“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from”—into the very reasons why someone is “so killable,” softening the blow with a few ironic refrains of “it’s not personal.” The triumphant guitar at the end just rubs it in.