Gracie Abrams' third album, Daughter from Hell, is a full-blown crime scene. Across 16 songs, the US songwriter catalogues slip knots, blades, bullets, knives, more knives, ghosts, cages, drugs, car crashes, blood, burial, flaming tyres, choking, burning houses, sinking ships, drowning, more blood, bloody knees and even more knives. The title acknowledges how the 26-year-old frayed her parents' nerves as a reckless teen, part of a wider theme about working out when to blame others for her pain and when to accept responsibility. However, the dissonance between Abrams' goth-coded emotional turbulence and the music's insistent, quivering prettiness is the real uncrackable case on this bloodless record.
Influences and Sound
Abrams has had an outsized influence on pop; her early bedroom songs inspired Olivia Rodrigo to write Drivers License, which kickstarted the former Disney star's dazzlingly quick act of self-redefinition. Mostly, though, Abrams is the sum of her influences: Lorde's vocal harmonies, Phoebe Bridgers' intimacy, and Taylor Swift's tightly packed storytelling. She shares Swift's producer Aaron Dessner (of the National) and collaborator Bon Iver, whose jump-scare falsetto appears on two songs. The sound echoes Folklore's pearlescent acoustics with a whisper of stomp-clap vigour. That mix of melodrama and songs sung like secrets means Abrams' audience skews young; for anyone older, her music can feel a little starter pack.
Abrams' Own Voice
Abrams has a case of indie-girl voice so trembling it often sounds as if she's singing while standing on a body-toning vibration plate. Her lyrics don't hew to traditional repeating pop structures; she prefers to unspool a story over a few minutes, ratcheting self-aware neuroses. She is a good observer of how people hurt themselves and each other. On Good Reason, she digs into why nice guys who would bleed for you can be unappealing. On Look at My Life, she sings, 'I've been thinking through the hard stuff / Over light drugs like every night', distilling the casual nihilism of a generation who have never seen any reason to believe that the good will out. Its heady pulse eventually boils over into an ornate crescendo, as close as things get to recklessness.
Musical Upgrades and Highlights
Daughter from Hell upgrades the synths of 2024's The Secret of Us for more filigreed orchestration. The rare moments when it kicks through the heavy decor are the best. The chorus to Broke My Heart has a swashbuckling sense of indignation; the racing Men Like You sharpens as Abrams swaps her usual close-mic'd hush for piercing recriminations. At moments, scale feels superimposed to make songs work in arenas. The Knife warrants the phone-torches-on cathartic sing along, but Good Reason is just Mazzy Star's Fade Into You coated in bland mirrorball sparkle. The title track, set only to rolling, distorted guitar, apologises to Abrams' mother and is meant to be a showstopper, but the grandeur starkly highlights the genericness of the record's centrepiece: the tribute plays like boilerplate wedding vows.
Smaller Songs and Misses
Of the smaller songs, Death Wish is most effective, with plinky sweetness underscoring lyrics about an inappropriate age-gap relationship. Otherwise, the saccharine sound chokes like a faceful of icing sugar. Humming drip-drops like rain in a puddle as Abrams whispers about her generation's short straw, a warranted sentiment but unavoidably cloying. The country lilt of What If It's Right? quickly wears thin as Abrams and guest Marcus Mumford bludgeon the title to death. The 1-2-3, 1-2-3 word emphasis in Mews lurches like sea sickness.
Missing Collaboration
The most glaring absence is Audrey Hobert, Abrams' best friend, who co-wrote six songs on The Secret of Us. Hobert has since broken out as a pop star; the separation is presumably meant to preserve their respective voices. Hobert gets just one co-writing credit here, on a springy fan favourite called Minibar. It's a less distinct version of Hobert's Bowling Alley and the second song to mention feeling weird at a party. Still, the sudden injection of pep from a stronger, instantly identifiable voice is unmistakable. Three albums in, you'd still struggle to pick Abrams out of a police lineup.
