This is a solo debut that needs no translation: an exercise in building tension and drama with waves of indie goth-pop.
Release date: March 27, 2026 | Felte Records | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
If you look at the album cover for Jessica Weiss’ solo debut Pain Will Polish Me, you’ll notice that what is supposed to be an album title is formatted as a film subtitle. Above this subtitle reads ‘New German Cinema’, Weiss’ haunting new musical persona, completely separate from her previous band Fear of Men. Despite its album cover’s implication, though, Pain Will Polish Me is a solo debut that needs no translation.
Scattered across its twelve tracks are a handful of eerie ambient passages that build internal drama and underlying tension. The record is bookended nicely with the opening swells of “Sub Rosa” and the chamber pop theatrics of closer “Perfect Secret”. But that barely scratches the surface of this LP, co-produced by dark pop mastermind Alex DeGroot. I was immediately reminded of acts like Zola Jesus when listening to the kick drums quietly pulsing throughout “Swirling Pain” or “My Mistake”’s gothic atmospherics, the latter of which features a co-write as well as co-lead vocals from Carson Cox of Merchandise, according to NGC’s Bandcamp press statement. Arguably the best of these flirtations with heartache and other types of pain is the album title track.
On “Pain Will Polish Me”, bass synths and arpeggiators thrum beneath brooding lyrical tidbits such as ‘covering the bite marks’, ‘we lost what we had’, ‘take a sip of blood to reveal it to you’, and of course, ‘the pain will polish me’. I’m usually terrible at trying to decode song meanings, but it’s easy to appreciate NGC’s more impressionistic approach to songwriting. Its sticky chorus is further accentuated by dreamy wall-of-sound synth pads, which also appear on several other songs for atmospheric purposes. Two more tracks, “Being Dead” and “Water Drops”, are worth mentioning: “Being Dead” for its doo-wop-esque vocalizations in its verses and “Water Drops” for being rhythmic as hell, featuring a Nine Inch Nails-coded industrial zigzag of a beat.
Elsewhere on this soundscape-heavy solo debut, there are some numbers which don’t always add up to ‘repeat listen’ territory. “Eyes” could definitely benefit from either being extended a bit or cut out entirely, as it just isn’t that memorable the way it is on the record. Same goes with “All That Heaven Allows”, although that’s mainly because it suffers from being placed right after the spectacular “My Mistake”. Even certain interludes, while essential to the album’s escalation, feel like they need some more pizzazz.
Aside from the weirdly filtered quality of Weiss’ voice on all tracks, Pain Will Polish Me by New German Cinema is a blend of musical accessibility with lyrical abstraction that is definitely worth a listen. The Fear of Men frontwoman will undoubtedly be in good shape in terms of her solo music career. Best of all, it’s an album that I and so many others will vibe with–no translation needed.
