We review ‘Daughter from hell’, the long-awaited work by Gracie Abrams
There are artists who seem condemned to have to prove something every time they open their mouth. What if the last name, what if the attentive gaze of Paul McCartney, what if another ‘Vogue’ cover, what if an upcoming foray into cinema. TO Grace Abrams That noise has been haunting him for years. “Daughter from Hell” Nor will it do anything to pacify his career. The title itself seems to want to break with the good girl image with a slogan. The American insists that it is an apology to her parents for having been a difficult daughter. But in the media it sounds like something else. To that old story of a youthful star who needs to convince us that she also knows how to be problematic. Too much fuel for the detractors.
Musically, the movement remains half-finished. “The Secret of Us” (24) was, in reality, a release, the album that made her a phenomenon. But that ‘momentum’ has already passed and the revalidation “Daughter from Hell”less urgent, more cohesive, apparently more naked writing, ends up confusing depth with containment. Everything revolves around psychological anxiety, wounds, hemorrhages, scars. An imaginary that is repeated so much that it ends up anesthetizing. The album wants to elevate the content by reducing the continent. And pruning leaves the trunk too exposed.
It doesn’t help that Aaron Dessner wraps it all up in that brooding Americana he knows so well. It is impossible not to hear echoes of Taylor Swift and, even more so, of Bon Iver. The textures are practically the same that the producer has been exploring for years with Justin Vernon. And there arises an uncomfortable question: to what extent does Gracie have room to explore a less trite voice? The soundscape constantly threatens to engulf her. Less concept and more pinching, for God’s sake!
When it is allowed to leave that framework, the album breathes. There they are “Hit the Wall”surely the best of the set, much more raw and direct, or “Minibar”a letter of introduction on television with Jimmy Fallon that vindicates a ‘songwriter’ capable of sustaining a song almost without artifice. They are glimpses of a composer who still seems more interesting when she looks outward than when she turns inside herself. Don’t blame her, that is a contemporary evil: the great stars write about their navel hoping that the world sees itself reflected in it, when perhaps the path should be just the opposite.
In retrospect, it would be unfair to demand much more revolution. Part of the mecca of industries. And he is 26 years old. It is not a ‘gamechanger’. What she does seem to be is an artist in transition. More imaginative than two years ago, yes. Also more boring. Better to excite with the umpteenth allegation of romantic love than to try to demonstrate how sophisticated it can be with acoustic arrangements. Because Abrams has an enormous virtue: he makes it easy. Their debut, almost unintentionally, has been one of the albums that I have listened to the most—me and so many—in recent years. ‘Easy listening’ in the best sense. This, on the other hand, does not hold up to conscious listening as well; perhaps therein lies the paradox. In a time where almost all music is consumed while we do something else, an album designed to stay in the background may have more future than it seems.
