In a Popcast interview about her third album, Daughter From Hell, Gracie Abrams talked about how she’d changed her songwriting style. A few years older and more conscientious of the feelings of the people she wrote about, she described the new record as “a little bit less diaristic, and mildly more existential.” Existential is right, but “mildly” is putting it, well, mildly: By the end of the album, you will hear many different attempts to explain how it feels to be Gracie Abrams, or at least to be around Gracie Abrams. There are physical descriptions: She is sick, she is numb, she is aching, she is bleeding, she is burning up, she is carrying pain for her whole life. There are metaphors: She is a crack in the pavement, a drop in your ocean, a knife cut to the bone. There’s even a supernatural angle: The perennially haunted Abrams experiences auditory hallucinations, sees shadows and apparitions, and is distracted at best and tortured at worst by the constant presence of loved ones who are no longer there.
This kind of psychic intensity has served Abrams well. Since the 2020 release of her debut EP, minor, she’s been excavating emotions to understated music; 2024’s The Secret of Us debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and its chatty bonus track, “That’s So True,” was a top 10 hit. Now with Daughter From Hell, Abrams once again combines bulletproof pop songwriting with a melancholic indie-folk aesthetic. Aaron Dessner, with whom Abrams has collaborated since her 2021 EP This Is What It Feels Like, is once again a co-writer and producer; his trademark acoustic guitar, soft percussion, and tender strings are all back on the menu. That guitar is more often fingerpicked than strummed, and piano features prominently on songs like “Mews,” a smoky ballad about not noticing the downturn of a relationship until it’s too late, and “The Knife,” where Abrams hits high notes so breathy they’re translucent.
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The production feels more grounded and more nuanced than that of The Secret of Us, whose rootsy foundation sometimes had a plastic sheen. Compare this album’s “Good Reason,” an airy song in 3/4 time in which Abrams lets an unsatisfactory romance lapse, to the previous album’s “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” another airy song in 3/4 time in which Abrams lets an unsatisfactory romance lapse: “Good Reason” is softer and warmer, hazy but still distinct, and most importantly, it ditches the verbose bridge in favor of a pared down post-chorus, giving her emotions some much-needed breathing room. “If only you got disappointed/If only I kept every promise/If only you treated me poorly/If only you didn’t adore me,” Abrams sings with blank resignation, no tears left to cry.
Abrams-Dessner compositions hit all the familiar beats: cozy arrangements that crescendo and diminish, whispered verses and yearning head-voice choruses, kick drums that sound like they were recorded in a basement two houses over, mildly quirky synths that, like good house guests, never overstay their welcome. Any diversion from that mode is a nice change, like the first couple of singles. “Look at My Life” in particular really pops—it’s a play-by-play of experiencing “a new spiral every night” that has its share of therapy-pop clichés (“Do I look high functioning or/Is my facade crumbling?”) but is such a banger that the psychology talk doesn’t feel cloying. At its best, Abrams’ writing taps into a satisfying cadence where the syllables follow an irresistible internal logic and hit just right. Take a verse like “What a gut punch, but then we go/Downtown, there’s no medicine/I’d spit out if it promises/Slowing down voices/Don’t want to hear a sound.” What looks inscrutable on paper makes total sense when you hear Abrams lay it out in her syncopated flow state. “Look at My Life” is new territory for her: a song about not having a good time, that is itself a good time.
