Stream: Elle Belle, ‘Everyone Knows (But They Won’t Tell You)’

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Elle Belle

Christopher Pappas has a tough act to follow … himself.

Pappas, who calls his musical vehicle Elle Belle, released a would-be magnum opus four years ago. Boasting a gobsmacking 20 tracks, “Wako Gumbo” was a wild psych/punk/synth/garage-rock ride. It came out in November 2016, making it one of two monumental events Pappas confronted that month. The other was the presidential election, the aftermath of which became fodder for his sharp songwriting on Elle Belle’s second album, “No Signal,” in 2018.

So here we are in 2020, feeling, as Elle Belle keenly notes, “Post Everything.”

That’s the title of Elle Belle’s third album, arriving Nov. 13 via Little Record Company, the label helmed by Rilo Kiley’s Pierre de Reeder. It’s more evidence that there’s no way Pappas should suffer from such a low profile, especially when his Elle Belle work is considered with his previous projects Miracle Parade and the Everyday Visuals.

Or maybe the songwriter puts the finger on it himself in the opening verse of new Elle Belle single, “Everyone Knows (But They Won’t Tell You)”: “I’m too nice for punk rock / But too angry for rock ’n’ roll / I’m too tired for fucking / But too young to be feeling old.”

It’s an almost brutal self-examination in under 2 1/2 minutes. How did Pappas get here? He cops to suffering some of the (all-too-common) emotional fatigue of the past four years, and like many a songwriter mired in the mud of nihilism, roots around for seeds of hope. Elle Belle’s music remains characteristically elastic — it’s the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and beyond — and his outlook on the general state of things fluctuates accordingly.

Certainly, the album can’t be judged on the crunchy, ’90s-styled title track, which name-checks Billy Corgan and, Pappas says, “was written out of a frustration from being on the losing end of a battle against American apathy. It’s a song about giving up and rediscovering what you’re fighting for.”

It does not necessarily foretell a happy ending, at least to this latest societal skirmish. “No matter what we’ll lose / But I think I can outlast you / You know that I’m a patient man,” he sings, taking the long view. Right now, it’s the most appealing picture.

||| Stream: “Everyone Knows (But They Won’t Tell You)”

||| Also: Stream “Post Everything”

||| Previously: “No Signal,” “Straight As an Arrow,” “Knock on the Light,” “Failed Dreamz”