Track listing: This is Democracy!, Power to the Elites!, LONELY., Pt. 3, Do Better, Everybody Got Something To Say, Emotional Volatility, Insufficient, Fishing, Pt. 2, ButterBoy & Cow!!, Pt. 2, Midi Lullaby, Riot!, Life of Ronnie, Carnage, Pt. 2, Career of a Bum, Who?, If I Needed Someone
There’s something delightfully unhinged about Emotional Volatility, the latest album from Son and Po. One minute, Jacob Ian Nagle is delivering a smooth R&B/rap groove about the Electoral College and tax breaks for the wealthy; the next, he’s launching into punk, jazz, lo-fi rock, experimental pop, or something that sounds like Frank Zappa wandered into a Tribe Called Quest session and brought a broken synthesizer with him.
And somehow, it works.
“This is Democracy!” is a perfect introduction to the album’s anything-goes approach. Built around a relaxed R&B groove and smooth jazz saxophone, Nagle delivers a rap that occasionally recalls A Tribe Called Quest or Del the Funky Homosapien, only with a deliberately ridiculous edge. Beneath the humor, though, are some genuinely pointed observations about the state of American democracy. It sets the tone for an album that is often funny, frequently strange, and considerably more serious than its eccentric musical personality might initially suggest.
“Power to the Elites!” immediately changes the temperature, shifting into light punk territory, while “LONELY., Pt. 3” dives headfirst into the record's emotional side. The Beastie Boys-esque rap delivery comes wrapped in a raw, don't-give-a-fuck punk attitude, making the song feel less like a carefully constructed performance and more like someone finally letting everything spill out.
That emotional honesty is one of the album's defining characteristics.
Nagle describes Emotional Volatility as a record about moving beyond some of the darker characters and subjects that appeared on his earlier albums. Instead, these songs explore everything from shyness and love to substance issues, political anger, motivation, and the often messy business of simply being human. He cites The Beatles' White Album and Kanye West's The Life of Pablo as influences, specifically because of their extreme contrasts and willingness to jump between styles.
You can hear that philosophy everywhere.
“Do Better” settles into a soulful R&B ballad, turning its attention toward human effort, motivation, and the challenge of pushing ourselves to become better. “Everybody Got Something To Say” takes a completely different route, combining an ONYXX-like rap delivery with punk guitar, then veering into something that could almost be a Rocky Horror Picture Show (RIP Tim Curry, today) number before the chorus erupts into Zappa-esque vocals and alien-sounding backing harmonies.
The title track is considerably smoother. “Emotional Volatility” rides a light R&B/jazz groove while confronting the very real difficulty of managing one's emotions, touching on subjects including bipolar disorder and high blood pressure. Across the album, Nagle's vocals remain extremely prominent in the mix, often drenched in reverb and delivered with an almost comically precise, hyper-articulated approach that gives even the strangest lyrics an unmistakable personality.
Then comes “Fishing, Pt. 2,” which sounds like somebody discovered an old Nirvana demo in a basement and decided to finish it with dissonant string parts. It's wonderfully lo-fi, but the melodies become increasingly strange and uncomfortable as the song progresses.
And that may be the best way to describe Emotional Volatility: Zappa meets A Tribe Called Quest meets early Nirvana demos, with a level of emotional seriousness that occasionally recalls Daniel Johnston.
“Midi Lullaby” may be the album's most affecting moment. Its sweet, understated melody provides a stark contrast to some of the record's more chaotic material, while the lyrics tackle some of Nagle's most personal issues. It's a reminder that beneath all the stylistic experimentation, absurdity, humor, and musical left turns, these songs are ultimately about very real experiences.
“Riot!” takes the darkness in another direction entirely, surrounding its vocals with demented-sounding music and atonal lead guitars. It's spooky, unsettling stuff—the kind of music you might imagine Buffalo Bill listening to in complete silence in The Silence of the Lambs.
And that's the strange magic of Emotional Volatility. These songs are all over the map, but they don't feel random. The contrasts are intentional. Nagle doesn't want every song to sound alike, and he's clearly willing to follow an idea wherever it leads.
More importantly, he's willing to say exactly what he means.
As Nagle puts it, “For my lyrics, I put exactly what I'm thinking down on the paper, without watering it down.”
That's a badass way for a songwriter to approach an album—and you can hear that lack of filtration throughout Emotional Volatility. Whether he's talking politics, loneliness, love, motivation, emotional instability, or the strange characters that populate his imagination, Nagle doesn't seem particularly interested in sanding off the rough edges.
The result is an album that can be hilarious one moment, unsettling the next, and surprisingly touching when you least expect it. Emotional Volatility doesn't ask to be neatly categorized. It embraces the contradictions, the stylistic whiplash, and the messy human emotions at its center.
And in a musical landscape where it's increasingly easy for artists to settle into a recognizable formula, there's something refreshing about an album that refuses to stay put.