Chastity Belt's 'All My Friends' Is a Warm, Unguarded Masterpiece of Camaraderie
Most bands assemble a record and then decide what it is about. Chastity Belt did it the other way round: the songs on All My Friends were written across multiple years and time zones, the oldest dating back to around 2018, and it was Samur Khouja — their longtime engineer — who noticed during mixing how many of them were about the people playing them.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Hunter Truscott’s bass is the quiet spine of a band where everybody sings. With Julia Shapiro, Lydia Lund, Truscott and Gretchen Grimm all on vocals, the arrangements need something that refuses to move around, and the bass takes that job without complaint.
The Spatial Dynamics: Songs tracked at Seahorse Sound in Los Angeles, Way Out in Woodinville, Washington, and a house on the Greek island of Hydra should sound like a compilation. They don’t. Paste heard it as “more spontaneous and less polished than the band’s most recent LPs,” which is the correct read — Khouja’s mix keeps the seams visible instead of sanding them flat.
Standout Performance
Gretchen Grimm, who plays drums on the record and then steps out from behind the kit to take lead guitar on “Friends for This.” She is also the one who told the label, “A lot of times in life I feel like a late bloomer.”
Why It’s Certified
“To Decide” and “Designs” led the rollout, “Pavement” is the one that sneaks up, and closer “Live Laugh Love” lands the thesis. Paste: “It is an album about, and borne by, friendship.” The Stranger’s Audrey Vann said her first listen “made me shed a literal tear of joy.” Hunter Truscott, more plainly: “Friends and community are everything.” Certified great.