Album Review: Laura Jane Grace - 'Hole In My Head'
Taking her time to express more of her thoughts, feelings, and anarchist beliefs with her guitar in hand, Laura Jane Grace has released a brand new solo record. Her first helping since the surprise release of Stay Alive in 2020, this record is a figurative - and according to the title and opening track, literal - opening and spilling of what’s been flying around Grace’s mind over her time on this planet. With fresh styles being tested, and old and new themes being brought to the forefront with no shying away or silencing, drill inside and have a look in Hole In My Head.
The record kicks off strong and nostalgic in ways, specifically in the rock-and-roll-esque ‘I’m Not A Cop’. Disguised as a classic rock-and-roll anthem of decades ago, it fuses the past with the present and gives a few of the future of the rock genre: it’s a bright, dirty, honest, unified future. A future which shows its continued use as one of the strongest yet safest weapons against a society that is still built to hurt and oppress the many and boost the few. This motivates Grace enough, as someone who has put her all into the punk movement since her teenage days, but also has a helping hand in encouraging young people in modern generations to stand up and use these tools the world gives them to fight back. Although it sounds like it comes from the earlier days of rock being used as fuel for activism, the message from ‘I’m Not A Cop’ is loud and clear. This is not only a method of the past. This is a method forever, always, and eternally.
Following on is a more acoustically led track, ‘Dysphoria Hoodie’. While the literal context surrounds an ADIDAS hoodie worn by Grace when she is suffering from debilitating gender dysphoria, the underlying meaning of the song is about a need to hide away and block out the rest of the world, and block oneself from the world.
Dedicating the track to her shared experience of having a piece of comfort clothing, worn to cover up one’s head and body when dysphoria rears its head, Grace delves deeper into the true pain of gender dysphoria. Wanting to be hidden away and swallowed by her clothing; wearing the item for “10,000 days”, brutally showing there is no known end or cure to feeling so low and misaligned; even turning to the most shallow form of faith to seek relief from the crippling emotional struggle. All experiences that have been seen and felt by the transgender community around the world, and all experiences that are as valid and as visible as physical ailments or other mental health issues. It’s Grace’s way of causing empathy in art on how being a transgender person isn’t all pride and parties; it’s painful, it’s dark, and plenty of the time, it’s lonely. Hopefully this track can begin opening eyes and opening minds to the deep dark truth behind being trans, and begin a new journey for the unknowing to learn anew.
‘Cuffing Season’ is another acoustic retelling of Grace’s recent life events. Paired with the following track ‘Tacos and Toast’, it gives off a feeling of how Grace has changed up her surroundings which she was once comfortable in and decided to try something new and something unknown. Change is a scary process, but one that is unavoidable in nature. When Grace switched up her controversial city life of Chicago and shipped herself to St. Louis, she took her time but found herself right at home under different street lights and sitting in different establishments. This comes to a head with her love letter to her new home in ‘Keeping Your Wheels Straight’ - a funny counterpart to her 2018 hate-mail to her former haunt in ‘I Hate Chicago’ - and it is a more optimistic look at the musician’s life compared to earlier in the record. It’s a happy ending coming, and that is the most anyone can ask out of life. All anyone wants is a happy ending.
Closing out the record is possibly one of the quietest yet hardest hitting song, ‘Give Up the Ghost’. Grace claims to be “screaming at God” within this empty vacuum, “I’m not done”. She fears becoming a shell, a mechanical working being; “an empty vessel” that retains no human characteristics at all. Without her spirit, she is nothing more than just a hollowed out case. No thoughts, no emotions, no humanity to keep her convinced she’s alive.
While this does not seem to be the happy ending that’s been shown to be coming closer with the previous tracks of the record, it really can be twisted into positivity. Grace has the temptation to give up on everything she’s ever believed in, give up on her art and her stances and at points, her own life - but she has never given in and is even yelling to the skies that her time hasn’t come yet and she has a lot more to fight for. While there is art to make and music to play, there will always be Laura Jane Grace opening herself up to the world the only way she knows how. With a microphone by her mouth, a guitar in her arms, and the words of a tortured life burned into her mind like a hole in the head.
Words by Jo Cosgrove
