is nothing sacred?

*is nothing sacred?* is Jeremy Zucker’s first set of new music since his 2021 album, *Crusher*—an uncommonly long two-year gap for the normally prolific alt-pop polymath. But as this five-song EP makes clear, he’s got a lot weighing on his mind. “The world is falling apart,” he laments at one point, before offering the cruel kicker: “and I don’t give a shit.” Although, in Zucker’s case, the apocalypse is as much personal as global, as he catalogs the ones who got away and the ones he’ll never have before zooming out to assess the state of the planet. Compared to his soulful signature tracks, *is nothing sacred?* bears a more rough-hewn bedroom-indie aesthetic that perfectly complements the dazed-and-confused tenor of Zucker’s lyrics: “cindy” renders its dysfunctional-relationship drama in lo-fi psych-funk textures like an emo Tame Impala; “internet crush” chronicles an online meet-cute’s descent into parasocial obsession as its gentle acoustic arrangement gives way to aggressively distorted strums. But for all the angsty introspection on display here, *is nothing sacred?* also finds Zucker embracing the power of positive change: On the therapeutic “OK,” he rides a breezy yacht-rock beat to toss a lifeline to a friend in distress, while the seemingly dystopian ballad “a dying world...” at least carries the faint hope that the next generation will do more to save the Earth than simply switch to reusable grocery bags.