On her fourth album ‘I Am Both,’ Margaret Glaspy trades indie rock for folk, turning fraught relationships into quiet mastery
Ten years after Emotions and Math announced her as one of indie rock’s sharpest new voices, Margaret Glaspy has made the album that finally reconciles all her selves. I Am Both, out August 7 via ATO Records, is the California-born, New York-based songwriter’s fourth full-length, and its title doubles as a thesis. Where her earlier work swung between spiky rock, glossy pop, and electric grit, this record settles into a warm, folk-leaning Americana that suits her better than any style she has tried, and it arrives as the most focused, emotionally exact work of her career.
The evolution has been a decade in the making. Glaspy’s path has looked like a series of about-faces: the grungy, Liz Phair-adjacent power-trio attack of her 2016 debut, the slick production of 2020’s Devotion, the electric-guitar return of 2023’s Echo the Diamond, and a 2025 covers set, The Golden Heart Protector, in between. I Am Both is the first record that feels less like a reaction to the last one and more like a genuine arrival. Produced by three-time Grammy winner Joe Henry at Reservoir Studios and cut in just three days with a small band, it makes a virtue of restraint, letting every understated note land.
Miscommunication as a Subject
Thematically, this is an album about the friction between people, and Glaspy studies it like a scientist. Across eleven tracks, hurt feelings, poor communication, and selfish impulses inspire a series of vignettes that capture common relationship ills with unfiltered honesty. Her characters talk past each other, make games of their misunderstandings, and often enrich each other’s lives precisely by leaving. It is the work of a writer who has clearly made some of these mistakes, learned from them, and wants others to see that growth is possible.
The specificity is what elevates it. “Petty“ finds Glaspy confronting her own least flattering instincts without irony or self-flagellation (“I’m sorry for being so petty / Oh I let my worst get the best of me”), a small, hard-won admission of growth. “That Rose,” one of only two tracks featuring her electric guitar, turns a dreamed-of flower into an ache of jealousy, her voice belting a yearning plea to be held the way a lover holds it. “I Thought She Was a Song” blurs the line between a person and the art we project onto them, examining idealization with uncommon subtlety.
Duality Without Easy Answers
What makes I Am Both cohere is its refusal to resolve. The title suggests contradiction and coexistence, and Glaspy embraces uncertainty as a permanent condition rather than a problem to solve. Her confidence here lies not in certainty but in her willingness to hold opposing impulses without forcing them into tidy conclusions. Opener “Michigan,” the lead single, sets the tone with a timeless country feel, telling the story of escaping the city for rural quiet after a breakup, all delicately picked guitar, subtle synths, and a wandering bassline.
She widens the lens too. “Common Ground“ is a short, sharp plea for nuance in a world of extremes, complete with a harmonica solo that could have been lifted straight off a Bob Dylan record, while “Martin Luther King, Jr.” and “Reminder” function as more direct calls to purpose. Even at its most pointed, the album never sacrifices the intimacy that is Glaspy’s greatest asset. Her voice, capable of switching into a spine-tingling raspy growl at a moment’s notice, carries an emotional sharpness that cuts through the clean, uncluttered arrangements.
I Am Both is a masterpiece of simplicity and directness, the sound of an artist who finally knows exactly what she is about. A decade on from her debut, Glaspy has stopped searching for a lane and simply built her own. It is her most complete statement yet, quietly fierce, deeply human, and impossible to shake.
