"[Wax Idols] is aloof and commanding, with an expertly honed sense of how far to take the tension it builds before offering relief. Listeners generally don’t enjoy being messed with in such an aggressive fashion, and it says a lot about where Fortune’s songwriting talents are at this point that she can pull off such a feat." — Pitchfork You could say that a lot has happened since the release of Wax Idols’ critically well-received 2013 album, Discipline + Desire, and if you’re steeped in the shorthand of music criticism go-to narratives, it would be dangerously easy to get reductive about what happened next: The band’s singer-songwriter, Hether Fortune, supported the album as best she could, spent some time in 2014 as a touring player in White Lung, went through a heartbreaking divorce, and then sat down to make American Tragic – the band’s long-awaited third album and first for Collect Records.