h. pruz’s growing pains

Discover Blogly is The FADER’s curated roundup of our favorite new music discoveries.

When Hannah Pruzinsky released their debut EP as h. pruz, 2022’s Again, There, they were working as a medical practitioner in Brooklyn and making music on the side. Again, There was recorded in their bedroom between shifts and is covertly naturalistic, the kind of project where every fingertip on the fretboard can be heard intimately and the hum of the city is cut in the edit. No Glory, the excellent follow-up album, arrives 18 months on; since then a lot has changed for Pruzinsky, who quit their job in the ER to focus on making music, ended a long-term relationship, and started a new one. No Glory is written from deep in the heart of this moment as Pruzinsky wrestles with their guilt and revels in the glow of a burgeoning love.

Pruzinsky is a heart-stoppingly frank writer whose words never feel retiring or vague. One passing of “Hurting”: “You’re so used to hurting / That it doesn’t feel wrong / I’m so used to hurting too… I’m so used to hurting you.” No Glory walks the tightrope between being admirably free of vanity and self-flagellation with grace. There is regret and admonishment in songs such as “Like Mist” that never tip over into begging for forgiveness. The only punishing thing about making the album, it seems, was the lack of running water in the upstate New York cabin in which it was made.

Adrianne Lenker is perhaps the most immediate reference point for Pruzinsky’s handspun and raw songwriting style. No Glory also feels in conversation with artists such as Lomelda and Florist who push folk music into more ambient directions. “Dark Sun” is a sparse song filled with air, a moment for Pruzinsky to let the music breathe and to relieve the pressure of the heaviness elsewhere.

Standing next to the stricken admissions of guilt are a collection of songs softly blinking in the morning light. “Dawn” quietly revels in the discovery of a new bond, though Pruzinsky still laces their pillow talk with small nips of self-loathing. “I have a talent for anger / And I’m jealous when I care” they admit as they test the boundaries of trust. “I Keep Changing,” however, is the stand-out moment of No Glory. It marks a notable increase in the pace of the album, with percussion and an electric guitar pulsing throughout and driving Pruzinsky’s celebration of physical pain as a sign of growth. “It’s so precious to be worn,” they sing with aching joints and a mouth full of blood. No Glory understands how experience can be bruising while accurately capturing the desire for something new, no matter how much carnage it leaves behind.