Gladie: Safe Sins (Color Vinyl)

Safe Sins, the debut record from Philadelphia band Gladie, begins with a prayer: "I close my eyes, pretend to pray/That this shame would just fuck off today," sings Augusta Koch, her familiar timbre floating atop a wave of bleary-eyed synths on opener "Pray." It's a gentle, hymnal introduction to a record that ducks from jangly power pop to plucky indie rock, scrappy electronic psych jams to swaying shoegaze. The record borrows it's title from Koch's personal poetry theme book: Safe Sins is a place of safety, acceptance, and progress. It is a record about isolation, loss, and dismantling shame and grief through self-analysis.