Local Airwaves is your source for the lowdown on tracks soon to be heard on WKNC. This week’s album is “I used to spend so much time alone” by Chastity Belt. 

Chastity Belt is no stranger to the airwaves of WKNC, being a fan and DJ favorite for a few years now. Garnering a reputation for playfully refuting gender norms and advocating for gender equality through its lyrics, the band has gained a strong following for both its wit and its light-punk, alternative rock sound. Though I am not strongly familiar with the band’s prior work, what I have heard of its past two albums is actually fairly different from what this new album has to offer.

“I used to spend so much time alone” is a much calmer, smoother album than the band’s former works. The aggressive, shouted vocals and distorted guitars of previous albums have been mellowed out, replaced with a more somber take. Where “No Regerts” and “Time to Go Home” had a crunchy, playful overtone with punchy, half-aggressive half-silly structure, Chastity Belt’s third album feels like it comes from a different place entirely. It’s like comparing the sounds of wind chimes and jingling chains to a sad hum and a can being kicked down the street.

This album is positively the opposite of chipper. The melody is in large part carried by the vocals as opposed to the guitars as would be somewhat more typical of indie alternative, with the eerie drones of lead singer Julia Shapiro multi-tracked to form a passive, ghostly chorus. The effect is ethereal and provocative, and puts the band less now in the camp of punk-alternative and more into the camp of pure alternative and dream-pop. Perhaps most evocative of this new aesthetic is the effects treatment on the guitars, bearing very minimal distortion or overdrive and instead a heavy reliance on a mix of delay, echo and reverb.

So what to make of it all is now the question. And of course, it’s always a waste of time and breath to say that it’s going to come down to what you as the listener think of the album, but it almost always holds true. “I used to spend so much time alone” is not a polarizing album after all. In fact, it might not be unfair to say it’s a touch generic in terms of indie rock. The instrumentation is very standard, the vocals (while very pretty) aren’t particularly new, and even the lyrical appeal isn’t unique to Chastity Belt. If you were to ask me what makes this album different from the sea of other alternative dream-pop bands out there, my only answer would be that it’s tight enough and refined enough to be enjoyable and noteworthy to a significant crowd of people.

This is not an album that relies on independent unique features, but instead on a uniquely expert and professional blend of fairly common features. Put simply, “I used to spend so much time alone” is good because of how good it is at what it does. It’s chill, it’s dreamy and it’s indie. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, then this album should be on your top-billed list of entrees for an evening meal of delightful music. If you’re in need of something more to be able to enjoy this album however, you may be left disappointed.

All in all, I enjoyed this album. I think most listeners should be able to look past any failings it might have and just enjoy it for what it is: a very solid, refined work of indie alternative. Fans of Chastity Belt may be put off by the new tone of the album at first, but it’s not hard to hear that everything the made Chastity Belt themselves for the past two albums is still present on this one. I recommend “I used to spend so much time alone” to fans of Girlpool, Sunflower Bean, Japanese Breakfast and Vundabar. It’s the perfect chill album to just zone out to.