Stevie Knipe shares their experiences living with cancer, expressing thoughts they previously found too daunting to articulate, and discusses the creation of Adult Mom's candid and poignant fourth album, 'Natural Causes' – a profoundly affecting project influenced by illness, resilience, and the newfound ability to communicate openly without rushing towards closure.
Stream: ‘Natural Causes’ – Adult Mom
After a decade with Adult Mom, Stevie Knipe has shifted away from seeking resolution in their writing.
In fact, 'Natural Causes' occupies an entirely different realm – one where clarity serves not as an answer, but as a means to remain present within pain, lingering emotions, and unresolved issues. The album is molded by time, sickness, anger, and acceptance, yet it does not present itself as a comeback or a victory. It invokes listening over boasting.
Throughout Adult Mom’s discography, Knipe has always penned songs with striking emotional clarity – tracks that feel as if they are being articulated for the first time, without armor or euphemisms. However, on 'Natural Causes', that raw honesty intensifies. Written from 2020 to 2023 and released via Epitaph this spring, the album comes after cancer treatments, long-evolving relationships, and a decade of personal and artistic reflection. What arises is not a conclusion, but simply existence.
Time does not progress linearly on 'Natural Causes'. Tracks composed years apart now converse with each other; memories once overshadowed by the need for survival return with fresh depth and implications. The gap between the past and present does not dilute what transpired – it sharpens it, allowing Knipe to revisit earlier experiences from a transformed perspective and body.
“It’s like a portal opening to view the past differently – realizing how many moments were complex and multifaceted, and how they still resonate within my body now,” Knipe tells Atwood Magazine.
Rather than compressing experiences into mere metaphor, 'Natural Causes' embraces contradiction. Fury exists alongside gratitude. Humor intertwines with despair. Songs like “Benadryl” and “How About Now” portray illness candidly, devoid of sentimentality, while tracks like “Crystal” and “Headline” explore queerness, memory, and trauma through clarity rather than obscurity. Knipe invites listeners into the emotions directly, refusing to allow a detached observation.
This invitation is reflected in the album's sound. 'Natural Causes' flows between vibrant immediacy and stripped-down intimacy, pairing acoustic restraint with moments of distortion and confrontation. The songs demand engagement rather than striving for a cathartic release – beginning with intensity, withdrawing unexpectedly, and resisting the urge to smooth over exposed emotional edges.
The album’s standout tracks sharpen this emotional architecture. “Benadryl” portrays the isolating fog of chemotherapy with stark precision, as Knipe softly sings over delicate acoustic guitar while mundane, ordinary details bear the gravity of survival without embellishment. “Why don’t they have any windows here?” they ponder aloud. “Would it kill them to have something without a gray hue? If this is where the dyin’ go then perhaps they need to fit the dyin’ mood.” The song unfolds in fragments – uninspiring hospital rooms, IV Benadryl, jokes shared to endure – allowing exhaustion and dread to coexist without dramatization. “Every part of this becomes a new nightmare,” they admit, confronting the unrefined realities of their struggle before landing on a subtly hopeful note. “The light at the end keeps getting further out, but once again it flickers and blinks just enough for me to get through it again. Another day, another pain, but at the end of it I think I’ll be okay.” The intimacy of Knipe's performance makes the song feel as though the listener is beside them in the quiet interstice of treatment rather than navigating it alone.
That same clarity permeates “Crystal,” which turns the lens inward. Rooted in seemingly buoyant folk textures that later erupt into fervent alt-rock, this song captures the dissonance of self-awareness while being misperceived – emotionally, romantically, and queerly. The song’s sweetness conceals a deeper pain, which surfaces as Knipe sings from the dual perspective of self-recognition and self-protection: “I am living in crystal / Two way glass / I can see myself / But you cannot see me back.” As the song intensifies and shatters, that internal dissonance finally expresses itself, transforming fragile introspection into something more forceful and unignorable. “Crystal” maintains that tension without resolution, allowing the anguish of misrecognition to linger as both a wound and a moment of hard-won clarity.
As 'Natural Causes' nears its conclusion, the record confronts its most unrelenting inquiries – not merely about survival, but agency, resilience, and what it means to stay present amid uncertainty. If “Benadryl”
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Stevie Knipe shares their experience of living with cancer, expressing emotions that they previously felt unable to articulate through song. The creation of Adult Mom's candid and unfiltered fourth album, ‘Natural Causes,’ emerges as a deeply affecting work influenced by illness, resilience, and the hard-fought right to communicate openly without hastening towards closure.