Jolie Laide Shape-Shift Into Something Spectral on Creatures
The Calgary/Seattle band’s second album channels grief, doom, and dusty Americana into a haunted, cinematic vision.
by Stephan Boissonnneault
A cloud of morbid dust hangs over Creatures, the second album from Calgary/Seattle outfit Jolie Laide. The 10 tracks dwell in a haunted dreamscape of forgotten lovers, phantom towns, cursed highways, and doom-lit prayers—an expansive, genre-shifting vision of fractured Americana.
Born from grief and transformation, Jolie Laide formed after engineer Steve Albini recommended members of Canadian indie outfit The Cape May join Nina Nastasia’s touring band. Their 2023 debut leaned into folk-rock, but Creatures is bolder, weirder, and more beautiful: a swirling blend of murder ballads, spaghetti western gloom, post-punk urgency, and melancholic electronic textures.
Nastasia’s voice drips with doom on “Cheyenne,” countered by Clinton St. John’s worn-in drawl. Morgan Greenwood (ex-Baths, Azeda Booth) injects dystopian warmth into synth-heavy tracks like “No Shape I Know” and “Small Things,” which shimmer with bruised hope. “Wharwolf” is a highlight: a dynamic, shape-shifting epic that crashes and recedes like a psychic storm.
Despite its stylistic sprawl, the album coheres through its core vocal pairing and immersive arrangements. Jolie Laide aren’t just evolving—they’re conjuring something uncanny and unified. Creatures finds unexpected beauty in ruin and reinvention, delivering a stunning widescreen vision of the ugly/pretty world they inhabit.
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