Phil Cohen has some hot takes. As the Westford-born singer-songwriter idly toyed with his chopsticks, moving the bok choy around on his plate of dim sum at a Burlington restaurant, he took on a look of intense concentration beneath his baseball cap and glasses.
"I don't think too many people would agree, but I think Springsteen's first record is his best," Cohen stated of Bruce Springsteen's debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. "I know he made some incredible records after, but it's such a cathartic record — he's feeling everything so hard.
"Same with David Bowie and Hunky Dory," he continued. "He's not cosmic Bowie yet; he's raw. And sometimes that's my favorite zone of songwriting. Just bare it all, man."
Cohen knows a thing or two about baring it all. His new LP, I Put the Day Away, which drops this Friday, March 22, on Bandcamp and Spotify, is a confessional blast of indie rock, ennui and lyrical bombs. Though it's technically Cohen's fifth release since he started writing music as a 15-year-old Vermont high schooler, he considers the new album his "second adult record," following 2014's Before I Go.
While not a concept record per se, I Put the Day Away is suffused with Cohen's multilayered existential dread. From lost loves to a love-hate relationship with alcohol to a lifelong fear of death, Cohen airs it all out on the LP. It also serves as a goodbye of sorts to New York City, where he spent seven years before returning to Vermont in 2017.
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Phil Cohen, I Put the Day Away
That wasn't his intention when he left Vermont. "I had this plan where I'd combine being a travel nurse and a musician and just be a total nomad," said Cohen, who now works as a nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center. "But it turned out I wasn't as much of a free spirit as I thought."
In Burlington, Cohen found a vibrant music scene he hadn't been expecting. Having left Vermont as a relatively young songwriter, he'd never had the chance to immerse himself in the local music community, he recalled. Everything felt new and exciting, like a clean slate on which to relaunch his music career.
He hooked up with Future Fields producer and saxophonist Dan Rome and started helping out at the downtown Burlington studio. There he met some of the city's best musicians, many of whom he would ask to play on his new album, including Cricket Blue's Laura Heaberlin, Dwight + Nicole drummer Ezra Oklan, guitarist Xander Naylor, and Goose drummer Cotter Ellis.
Before he could make a new record, though, he'd have to deal with those pesky demons. No stranger to anxiety, Cohen was still surprised to find himself experiencing a newfound case of imposter syndrome.
"I'd actually thought I'd put all that stuff behind me," Cohen said. "I've released so much music and played so many shows for so many strangers, I didn't understand how I could still feel like that. But I fucking did, so..."
He details those feelings on the advance single "Pinchgut Town," an angular and vibrant indie-rock jam. "I was the golden son, / now I'm just the lonely one," Cohen sings. "I am the mouth the hand couldn't feed / I am the man the world didn't need."
Before Cohen could get his new Vermont career in gear, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Instead of assembling a backing band and playing shows, Cohen was stuck at home. He used that downtime to keep writing the songs that would make up I Put the Day Away.
"The album started to have this vague feeling of grief, of leaving New York and trying to get rid of the past version of myself," Cohen explained. "There was some self-loathing and drinking, a cosmic swirl of schmutz."
The result of all that schmutz is one of the strongest local albums of the year so far. While Cohen's earlier work was Americana-adjacent, I Put the Day Away has a much more aggressive push while remaining melodic. On "Monday Best," he dives into Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-era Wilco territory, with fiddles and horns blending seamlessly for a folk-meets-experimental-rock feel. "Monterey Bay" is all over the spectrum, with hints of Celtic folk and waves of synth coloring a tune about familial trauma and working in wine country.
"It's an honest record, and that's a little scary for me," Cohen admitted. "I used to sort of hide behind vagueness on my younger records. This one is very much about me."
To underline how personal the record is, he's shot an accompanying video for every track. Six of those videos are already on YouTube, including "Sugar Fire" and "Blue Hill."
Cohen's also looking into a limited vinyl release, something his past imposter syndrome moments wouldn't have allowed. "I didn't think I was good enough to have a record," he said. "Now, it's just a question of money. But I think we're there, and it would be awesome to hold that record in my hands — like climbing a mountain."
What scares Cohen isn't baring his soul so much as baring it to an audience of no one.
"Rubbing up against that part of humanity where you put your art out to be judged gives me a very, very specific kind of anxiety," Cohen said. "I'm a quiet perfectionist, so I'm scared to try this hard at something and still be met with a tepid response. That absolutely terrifies me sometimes."
Cohen wondered for a long time whether he would still make music if there were no audience.
"I love making art," he said. "It's just about how much I can bear to push that art, you know? But I know now that I can't live without making music. It doesn't really matter if people are buying my music or coming to my shows — I'm going to write music either way."
Cohen laughed a little as he put down his chopsticks.
"I mean ... I don't need people to be listening," he said with a sheepish grin. "But it would be nice."
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Bio:
Music editor Chris Farnsworth has written countless albums reviews and features on Vermont's best musicians, and has seen more shows than is medically advisable. He's played in multiple bands over decades in the local scene and is a recording artist in his own right. He can often be found searching for the perfect soft pretzel or listening to a podcast about the X-Men.
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