Abrams’ record is called Daughter From Hell, a reference to her rebellious teenage years, and it arrives to a flurry of anticipation.
The 26-year-old has been making introspective, confessional pop since the end of the 2010s, but her career really took off with the release of her debut album, Good Riddance in 2023. That year, she supported Taylor Swift on the Eras tour, and won a Grammy nomination for best new artist.
She earned her first UK number one in 2024 with That’s So True, a single from the deluxe edition of her second album, The Secret Of Us. Anticipation for her new work has been building since last year, when she performed two new songs – Death Wish and Cold Goodbyes – on tour.
They hinted at a darker, more gothic aesthetic, with lyrics haunted by ghostly figures and existential crises.
Cold Goodbyes, in particular, is set to the sound of an unsettling synth drone – a world away from the gently-plucked ballads of her earlier work.
Sadly, it’s an outlier. The music on Daughter From Hell is largely the same as before: low key, whisper-soft, self-interrogating, floaty and inconsequential.
The pianos are always muted, the drums all sound like they’re being played next door, and the orchestra is buried deep in the mix to foreground Abrams’ voice.
