There aren’t many artists that I’ve had a more complicated relationship with than Alex G. I was in college when Alex Giannascoli, then a college student himself, first made serious waves in the indie music world via his self-recorded, small label released albums Trick and DSU. These records that captivated many of my colleagues in college radio with their home cooked production and their sentimental, almost childlike lyrics that were also a little odd and twisted if you read them the right way but for me, it was all a little too precious. I could appreciate some of the big tracks like “Harvey” and, by the time he signed to Domino and released Beach Music, “Kicker,” but there was always something about his music that felt a bit like baby talk to me. It was precocious and simple, and relied on downbeat, melancholy melodies that I, in that stage of my life, considered whiny and indulgent. It didn’t help that I was surrounded by people who clearly thought his music was brilliant and, by extension, began to view him as a figure to either desire (Alex G is not a bad looking man) or aspire to (the guy did wonders for hat sellers and thrift stores, and probably ruined a few barbers). Naturally, I dug in against him.

I didn’t really start to come around on Alex G until 2017, when he released Rocket, far and away his most classicist album. A twangy, rootsy record that felt right at home alongside albums from the same year by country inspired acts like Ratboys and Angel Olsen, Rocket was the first time where I felt like Alex G was writing actual songs instead of fragments and expanding beyond underground conventions by filling out his sound with richer, more balanced instrumentation. But it also featured some grating experiments, like the cartoonishly abrasive “Horse” and cloying “Sportstar,” which would unfortunately serve as a jumping off point to 2019’s House of Sugar, the album that almost made me swear off Alex G for good. While it features a trio of great singles in the form of “Hope,” “Southern Sky”, and “Gretel” as well as a reverent Bruce Springsteen homage, the rest of the album is composed of electronic tracks where Alex G warps and contorts his voice to be as off-putting as possible and explores textures that feel like they belong in the soundtrack to a cheesy video game. Most people listened to House of Sugar and heard a daring step forward. But all I heard was knob twiddling and experimentation in search of a purpose. None of these songs felt like they had a point – instead, it felt like they were recorded just so Alex G could prove that he could make something boring and uninviting. My skepticism had been refueled.  

It’s with this mindset I walked into God Save the Animals, Alex G’s ninth proper album and his fourth on Domino. I was intrigued by the singles, which featured straightforward indie rock songs and some of the best sounding guitars of the year, but I was also wary of being burned again. I was ready to take the contrarian position that this guy is all tricks, no substance, and that his place in the indie rock canon represented something shallow and pretentious about the culture. 

But I can’t do any of that. After sitting with this album for a few days, I am forced to admit that God Save the Animals is a profound, if simple, statement on hope, love, addiction, and maturation and a fascinating bridge between the worlds of traditional indie rock and Internet native electronic music. It manages to be sad yet charming, rootsy yet innovative, dark yet hopeful. It is probably the best album of the year.

From a musical perspective, the biggest step Alex G takes is finding a way to integrate his autotune fetish and interest in electronic textures with more traditional indie rock arrangements. On House of Sugar and, to a certain extent, Rocket, these elements sat on top of each other like oil on water. On God Save the Animals, they’re part of a fluid mixture that enhances, rather than dilutes, the songs’ emotions. On album opener “After All,” Alex G pitch shifts his voice to make it more feminine and angelic, which make his promises of restored innocence and eternal love sound divinely delivered, while “Cross the Sea” drops his voice a few octaves lower into a husky R&B warble, sounding alternately weary and soothing.

Elsewhere, on “No Bitterness” and “Immunity,” Alex G dabbles in hyperpop, but mixes the chiptune vocals and frantic drum machines with banjo and jazzy piano, successfully blending an inherently synthetic genre with more traditional instrumentation. Merely reading about it, his entire approach may seem like a mess – but Alex G is probably one of the few musicians who can take all of these disparate sounds and combine them into something coherent and pleasant to listen to. It helps that he cuts the weirder moments with more conventional songs like “Runner” and “Ain’t It Easy,” but even these tracks have little flourishes – a scream here, some feedback there – that keeps the listener wrongfooted and reminds them that, yes, this is still an Alex G album, which means there isn’t anything truly normal about it. 

But despite Alex G’s commitment to keeping things weird, God Save the Animals features what are probably his most straightforward lyrical conceits, playing out as something of a concept album about an aging millennial finding solace in family and God. It’s always been hard to tell when Alex G is being serious – is he actually a quirky outsider with a childlike understanding of the world, or does he just play one on record — and in an interview with Pitchfork released earlier this month, he mostly poo poos the idea that all of his songs are autobiographical or that the myriad of interpretations fans have come up for them are even remotely accurate. But the God motif is inescapable on this album. Alex, or at least the characters he writes about, search for it, yearn for it, and – occasionally – find it, and when they do they’re comforted by its presence. Even the titles of the songs – “Blessing,” “Miracles,” “Forgive,” “Mission” – are religious buzzwords, signaling that this is something Alex G is taking very seriously, even if he isn’t out and out preaching or evangelizing. This contrasts, of course, with the numerous references to drug use and drug dealing, which could be mere non-sequiturs, but could also be what it is that Alex G (or his characters) are looking for salvation from.

These two themes meet in the middle on “Miracles,” the album’s penultimate track and arguably the best song of the year. A simple but stunning folk song, “Miracles” is both an expression of exhaustion (“How many more songs am I supposed to write”/”Before I turn it off and say good night?” Giannascoli asks about his chosen profession) and gratitude. Uncertainty and anxiety are ever present forces in “Miracles,” but these evils melt away in the presence of both mortal and divine love. Alex G may initially dismiss his partner’s suggestion that they have a baby (“Right now, baby, I’m struggling, we’ll see, yeah”) but eventually he comes around, buoyed by the fact that they have “better pills than ecstasy,” namely “miracles and crosses.” To some, this may read as smug Bible thumping, but Alex G handles these sentiments with a blunt sort of delicacy, reveling in the clarity of his language and the purity of the acoustic sounds that swirl around him. Who knows if this is a genuine statement of faith or just a nifty bit of poetry, but either way, the result is holy in its beauty.

In that aforementioned interview with Pitchfork, Alex G says most of his lyrical references to God were inspired by people in his life who had recently become religious, and writing songs about it helped him explore “what faith meant,” comparing his songs to an “abstract painting.” Of course, it’s impossible to not read into “Miracles” or the rest of this album without considering Alex G’s real life. It was recently (if somewhat indirectly) announced that his girlfriend – violinist and Japanese Breakfast touring member Molly Germer – is pregnant, adding an extra potency to lyrics about having a baby and committing to loving someone else for the long run. It also makes God Save the Animals something of a generational statement. I’m only one year younger than Alex G, and while I don’t plan on having a child anytime soon, the kind of maturation process he sings about on God Save the Animals – of abandoning youthful indulgences, wondering if you can ever move on from past indiscretions, reconciling your own path with tradition – is one that I’m beginning to go through, and one that I imagine that many of my peers are going through as well. 

The mystique of youth can only last so long, and those of us who tried to dance along the fringes in our 20s are inevitably pulled back to the middle, forcing us to try and devise a way to maintain our identity while becoming responsible adults. God Save the Animals is not about Alex G successfully making that transition. Instead, it’s about him starting to think about the things he looks forward to in this next, nebulous stage of life all while dealing with the things from his past that keep him up at night. It’s a snapshot of a state of mind, but also a companion for its listeners. Alex G is just as scared and confused about his future as you are about yours. But he also seems sure that, somewhere, we’ll all find grace.