Historian (album)

Historian was produced by Dacus, Jacob Blizard and Collin Pastore, the same team that produced her debut album, No Burden.[4] Dacus and her band recorded the album over the course of a week in March 2017 in Nashville.[4][5] She described the album as a song cycle about "living through loss and the inevitable darkness of life, and doing so hopefully and joyfully."[4] Of the title of the album, Dacus explained, "It's me having this impulse to document and capture and create a history of my life and the people that I know [...] Because as I’m making this history and capturing these things that I hold dear, those things won’t stay."[6]

On December 12, 2017, Dacus formally announced the album, alongside the first single from the album "Night Shift".[7] The second single "Addictions" was released on January 16, 2018.[8]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.8/10[9]
Metacritic	82/100[10]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[11]
The A.V. Club	B[12]
Chicago Tribune	[13]
DIY	[14]
Mojo	[15]
NME	[16]
Pitchfork	8.1/10[17]
Q	[18]
Rolling Stone	[2]
Uncut	8/10[19]

Historian was met with "universal acclaim" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 82 based on 20 reviews.[10] Aggregator Album of the Year gave the release a 80 out of 100 based on a critical consensus of 22 reviews.[20] Marcy Donelson of AllMusic said of the release: "Ultimately, the forte passages don't encroach on the songwriting, as they underline emotion, but they do, at times, step on Dacus' voice, when she's clouded by high-volume accompaniment or even vocal processing. Thankfully, those moments are brief and rare, allowing her lyrics and expressive sense of melody to shine."[11]