Fatal Optimist by Madi Diaz

In her mid- to late 30s, Madi Diaz has become the indie-music poet of romantic realism. On 2021’s  History of a Feeling  and 2024’s  Weird Faith , she gave beautiful, if often stark, form to the damage lovers did to each other and to the methods by which they either hurt or healed themselves. 

Fatal Optimist  is no less beautiful than its predecessors, and it feels even starker: if Diaz shines a lantern into the fog of emotions, then Diaz’s co-producer, Zach Bryan and Soccer Mommy collaborator Gabe Wax, simply intensifies and focuses the beam rather than trying to clarify the murk. 

With the careful phrasing of a folk singer who could silence the most gregarious coffeehouse audience and the melodic assurance of a pop singer who can hit the right notes ra

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