“Storm in Summer,” Skullcrusher’s second EP, sounds fuller and wilder than their debut (self-titled) EP released last year. Helen Ballentine and her collaborator, Noah Weinman, give these songs more heft with layers of sounds. Ballentine’s ethereal voice (oftentimes multi-tracked), her guitar, and Weinman’s banjo (which gives the songs a lot of unexpected texture, it fits so well alongside Ballentine’s singing) are the base elements, and these are accompanied by peals of percussion on “Windshield” and “Storm in Summer,” a possible theremin (or theremin-esque sound) on “Song for Nick Drake,” and a windy field recording (and something that sounds like a soft marimba) on “Prefer.” The songs on “Skullcrusher” were beautiful, but everything on “Storm in Summer” sounds more realized, firmly drawn.
Ballentine has said that she felt pretty vulnerable after the release of Skullcrusher’s first EP, and she wrote some of the songs on “Storm in Summer,” including the title track, in reaction to being weirded out at the thought of people listening to her songs, and (mis)interpreting or disliking them.
I love that two of the songs on the EP, “Windshield” and “Prefer” are composed of what are basically declarative statements, as if Ballentine is daring people to try to misinterpret what she’s singing about. In “Windshield,” she sings, multivocally, above thrashing cymbals, “I forced my foot through the windshield before you.” (Also enjoy the ambiguity of whether this is “before you” in terms of “prior in time” or “in front of”). In “Prefer,” which is the quietest song on the EP, she sings about a simple pleasure: “I prefer the rain in summer.”
The title track is my favorite song on the EP, though, and it’s the one that most directly addresses the question of how to deal with scrutiny, criticism, and the experience of putting your art out into the world. Here she is right at the start of the song: “How did I end up here with my old lines on your page?/Sometimes I wish I’d kept them safe/Far away from your gaze/And I wonder how you think you know who I am/I’m still lying on the floor/I’m right where I began.” Later, Ballentine wonders whether, if she “step[s] into this storm,” she’ll find a place for herself.
What I really love about this song is the ending, though. Ballentine sings, “I wish you could see me…I wish you could see me start this storm.” The melody (and the lyrics) here feel a little like a reference to Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees,” which feels very purposeful coming from a band that covered “Lift.” At the end of “Fake Plastic Trees,” Thom Yorke sings, “If I could be who you wanted…If I could be who you wanted all the time,” expressing some degree of powerlessness or at least contrary-to-fact desire, and I love that Ballentine’s ending in “Storm in Summer” is all about the actions she’s going to take—she wants people to witness what she’s about to do.