Local Review: Josaleigh Pollett + Crowd Shy — If I Let It Quiet

Josaleigh Pollett + Crowd Shy
If I Let It Quiet
Audio Antihero + Lavender Vinyl
Street: 07.24.2026
Josaleigh Pollett = Japanese Breakfast + Pet Shop Boys

You’re walking through your childhood backyard for the last time. You’re older now, and the space, while familiar, doesn’t feel the same as it used to. The neighbor’s house next door has a stranger living in it. The dog you loved can’t bark at the squirrels anymore. You’re living in the same body you’ve always had, but it feels different to move in it now. Something catches your eye — is that a tape player nestled in the dirt? Curious, you hit play, sure it won’t work. It does, and Josaleigh Pollett’s latest album is what comes out of it.

Wrapped in the soft sadness of nostalgia, If I Let It Quiet is not a departure from their 2023 In The Garden By The Weeds release, but rather what you’ll find deeper inside yourself as you keep exploring. If Pollett feels like they keep “getting to the party just when everyone is leaving” (from “The Witness”),  this album feels like intruding on the intimate details of a past that isn’t mine, but feels so familiar. Memory has softened the sharp edges of clarity, reflected in the gentle fuzz present on nearly every track: this album sounds like an old tape, recorded at home with love and listened to many times as an attempt to return to what once was.

“Shed Piano, Birds” lowers us gently into this strange new (old?) world as the first track, immersing us slowly yet steadily into something beautiful. Pollett, in combination with their long-time creative partner and bandmate Jordan Watko (AKA Crowd Shy), has always excelled in creating atmosphere, but this release truly stands apart for its richness; If I Let It Quiet is an expansive soundscape we get to explore. Expansive is an apt descriptor here — Watko and Pollett were nearly 6,000 miles away when they made If I Let It Quiet. Watko had previously relocated to Osaka, Japan while Pollett remained in SLC, and the inherent strangeness of leaving behind familiar landscapes definitely adds to the wistfulness this album is soaked in. Local musician Andrew Goldring joined forces with Pollett and Watko, assisting with production, mix, and mastering.

“Cherry,” a song that showcases Pollett’s lyrical prowess, comes next: every line feels layered and heavy with intimate meaning. This song is a slow acceptance that something is gone — a relationship that soured, a desperate longing to go back to the way that things used to feel. Lines like “the blood’s not blood / it’s the juice from a cherry” feel like an attempt to reject the obvious reality because it’s too painful. But “your hate is fit to last,” and things can’t be the same: “from two of us brothers to both of us dead / laid to rest in the nineties in the backseat of a van.” The song fades beautifully into an isolated Pollett singing the same lyrics, but now these words feel like the final acknowledgement that the past is unreachable.

“The Witness” takes this same complicated relationship and steps back to observe it from a distance: “I can see why you are doing what you’re doing / I can see a part of me in you.” Pollett knows they “couldn’t arrive at myself without you,” and yet the driving, distorted synth behind their voice inspires restlessness, a desire to change that isn’t being heard. Pollett starts to recognize their autonomy outside of the relationships that have defined them, singing “will you tell me I’m your favorite version of me and then watch while I change it.”

Grief begs to be witnessed. Sadness wants to be seen. Humans need connection, but we need connection that allows for growth. This story continues on “Bed of Quiet,” with a stilted beginning and Pollett heartwrenchingly coming to the conclusion that “you are not my rooted violet / when the concrete cracks, you stop reaching for the light.” Electric guitar disrupts the spacey, peaceful synths. Vocal distortion clashes against Pollett’s clear singing. With this oscillation, Pollett and Watko conjure images of laying awake at night, arguing with yourself over something you know to be true but brings you no peace.

“Bed of Quiet” devolves into a warbled voice and glitching that seamlessly becomes “Like A River.” Pollett’s self-doubt about their participation in their life and relationships is more wistful here. Watko keeps things steady and soft as Pollett ruminates on their sleeplessness: “I could be wrong about the push and pull” and “If I let it quiet, who am I if not my thinking?” There’s more space for Pollett to reflect, coming eventually to the repeated conclusion — “I think that I’m going to be up for a while” — bouncing around in this musical space like it surely bounces in Pollett’s mind.

“Repeating” emerges from what sounds like an error with the tape player. Watko’s production builds on top of each other to create a modular foundation for Pollett’s voice. Layered, garbled instrumentation leads us to catch fuzzy glimpses of something else, but these disappear before we can make sense of them — maybe it’s just an error with an old tape? Over and over, Pollett sings “it is now / it is then,” slowly transitioning to only sing “it is then.” Pollett sounds resigned to their fate, singing as if they know this cycle of anxiety is inescapable.

The lonely acoustic guitar on “Second Guesser” sounds as if “Repeating” was stripped back. Crystalline synths sparkle above Pollett’s mournful voice as tension builds. We’ve left the soft escape of hard-won sleep and now we’re facing grief in the harsh light of day. The heavy, undulating drone builds up Pollett as they crash into each chorus: “And the morning feels the same / I am calling out your name / to see what turns around.” But in the end, it’s just Pollett and their guitar, alone with the reality that “no one’s there to keep me from second guessing.” Echoing cello closes out this track, transforming into a heartbeat that leads us to “Escape Routes.”

“Escape Routes” has synths reminiscent of a classic video game, upbeat and bouncy. “When you take out your escape routes, you must fight,” Pollett sings, and this track is preparing you for the boss fight. It’s the realization that there is nowhere left to run to avoid your reality. Nostalgia for the past was always a temporary escape — no matter what we do, the complexity of reality begs to be acknowledged, and the past was never really simple, anyways.

“Radio Player” continues this tension: it’s the climax of this story, yet again speaking to powerlessness and invoking sleep as a metaphor for the uncontrollable passing of time. You don’t feel ready for the next day, but time doesn’t care — the fight is coming anyways. Pollett’s singing is resolute and desperate at the same time as they sing “When I fell asleep it was fine / now the dark is crying out with a feeling.” It’s the vocal equivalent of your character looking around, realizing you’re surrounded by enemies, and clenching their fists. How do we reconcile with the world after we wake up?

“Radio Player” ends with silence. Fuzzy noises imitating fumbling with a tape begin “We All Got It Right.” This is a soundtrack to dealing with the aftermath of a relationship rupture: the chorus consists of electric, grungy distortion that explodes suddenly against the soft singing and calm acoustic guitar in the verses. It’s those flickers of anger and hurt that come unexpectedly out of acceptance, even years later.

“Yasaka, Natsu” is a cinematic, expansive instrumental that gives us space to process all that we’ve felt. It leads us perfectly into album closer “Tacit,” where Pollett is once again alone with their acoustic guitar and their reflections: “What comes next / just living / to change it back.” Themes of mapping and planning come back one more time, but this time, Pollett is energized by the idea to “rip it up and go.” The song ends with spacey synths and one last chord before silence, reminding me of the final click of a cassette that’s reached its end.

If I Let It Quiet is lyrically and sonically complex. Pollett and Watko have created an album you’ll want to listen to straight through — each song is better when listened to in context. Like a movie that gets better with each rewatch, this album is one you’ll want to play again. With every listen, you notice more: the lyrical callbacks of mapping and exploration, the similar musical phrases that keep popping up, the recurring theme of sleep and the role of its counterpart, day. It’s an emotional journey, an attempt to reckon with the inherent powerlessness of the human condition. It’s undeniably Pollett’s story, but Pollett and Watko are able to tell us this story in a way that invites our own reflection, too. We’re better off if we do just that. –Jude Perno

Read more from Jude Perno:
Local Review: Josaleigh Pollett – In the Garden, By the Weeds
Into the Third Space With DJ Matthew Fit

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