Folklore, Taylor Swift's eighth album, arrived on Monday (July 27) with no warning, released on a whim in the heat of a lonely summer. It was made from afar, primarily with the National's Aaron Dessner.

Pitchfork's review calls it a sweater-weather record filled with cinematic love songs and rich fictional details. The review notes that Folklore will forever be known as Swift's “indie” album.

After years as pop's most reliable first-person essayist, Swift channels her style into fiction and autofiction, finding protagonists in a rebellious heiress and a classic teenage love triangle. In The Last Great American Dynasty, she tells the story of an eccentric society figure.

For Pitchfork, the record asserts something that has been true from the start of her career: her biggest strength is storytelling, her songwriting craft meeting the whimsy of her imagination, while the music around those stories is free to change.