Being left on read, fixing feelings "with the whores", lingering obsessions, smoking too much, ruining sheets (twice), "felony suburbs" – intrigued yet?
Grace Mitchell – a singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist (keys, guitars, drums) – started penning the first of these compelling, raw tunes in Hollywood five years ago. The Australian-born, American-raised artist has since relocated back to Melbourne, with daughter in tow, to reconnect with her paternal family.
Track one, Humiliation Nation, saunters in with casual guitar strumming. Mitchell’s insouciant vocal delivery – even octave leaps are executed rather matter-of-factly! – camouflages the album’s recurring unhealthy-attachment theme.
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Head On is the kinda song that would lure festival punters away from neighbouring stages/food trucks in droves: “Making fun of both our exes/ Smoking on the patio/ I even said from the beginning/ I was freshly on my own…” – it all starts innocently enough. But as this song’s arrangement gradually intensifies, a dark infatuation – underlined by double-tracked vocals – emerges: “Just ’cause you couldn’t fuck her doesn’t mean you didn’t try” – ouch!
Close To Me, with its descending doom riff, reads like an important purging. With minimal, almost self-loathing verses contrasting crashing choruses, Feeling Something is a cautionary tale: heal, don’t move onto the next one too fast. A throbbing electronic pulse underscores Baseball Hat, which languishes in fuck-buddy purgatory.
“All that is over”, repeated 11 times, are the final lyrics sung and we sure hope so, for her sake.
Throughout her debut record, Mitchell sounds self-assured and anchored in her own truth, as if finally releasing music she’s 100% behind.
LABEL: CHEERSQUAD RECORDS
RELEASE: 4 SEPTEMBER
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