On the surface, Colleen Green’s new album, I Want to Grow Up, seems like a pretty straightforward read. The record — her second for Hardly Art — boasts a bigger, cleaner sound than 2013’s scuzzy self-recorded gem Sock It to Me. It also finds Green trading in her trusty drum machine for a real-live thrasher (Diarrhea Planet’s Casey Weissbuch) and bringing a producer on board for the first time (JEFF the Brotherhood’s Jake Orrall). The resulting songs are catchy, cohesive, and a far cry from the alone-and-stoned bedroom musings of Green’s back catalog. From the looks of it, L.A.’s reigning slacker queen hasn’t just grown up; she’s turned into that crazy-cool adult all the kids want to be.
Or so you think.
A quick perusal of the album’s lyric sheet reveals a whole slew of conflicting emotions bubbling below the surface. “I gotta stop doing things that are bad for me,” Green sing-songs on the bubbly “Things That Are Bad for Me (Part I).” That song’s counterpoint comes with “Things That Are Bad for Me (Part II),” which builds around brutal guitars and lamentations like “I want to get high right now.” Then there’s “Deeper Than Love,” the record’s scary-good and truth-bomb-filled centerpiece. “I’m wondering if I’m even the marrying kind,” Green muses. “How can I give you my life when I know you’re just gonna die?”