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Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams is back with her first album in two years and third overall. “Daughter From Hell” was released July 17, and the reviews are in.
Her last album, “The Secret of Us,” earned her a Grammy nod for the collaborative track titled “us,” made with mentor and friend Taylor Swift. She was also up for best new artist.
Abrams has grown into her expanding spotlight alongside support and collaboration from some friends in the industry. Abrams opened for nearly 50 shows of Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” and Swift’s longtime collaborator, Aaron Dessner, produced “Daughter From Hell.”
Abrams also took a page out of friend Olivia Rodrigo’s book, working with Dan Nigro, Rodrigo’s longtime creative partner with credits on both her studio albums, on a song. Abrams even gave her boyfriend, actor Paul Mescal, a writing credit on the track “Imaginary Friend.”
Abrams is known for emotional, self-aware songs and creating flow through intensely introspective observations. Critics are responding to her new album, “Daughter From Hell,” with different takeaways on how hard these emotions really hit.
Read below to find out what critics think of “Daughter From Hell.”
Pitchfork
Pitchfork’s review is a mixed bag, amounting to a 6.2 out of 10 points. In it, Molly Mary O’Brien writes that Abrams sticks to her signature style, but the “few risks she takes result in her best songs yet.”
Lyrically, O’Brien says the album is “incredibly intense” yet “frustratingly vague.” For example, she describes “Imaginary Friend” as being “evocative without ever cohering.” Of “Cold Goodbyes,” she writes, “the cryptic communication style wears extra thin, as I cannot for the life of me tell who or what it is about.”
Abrams could have “a more adventurous path forward, but it will require (her) to venture even further away from home.”
Harper’s Bazaar
After listening to “Daughter From Hell,” weekend editor Sophie Wang sees Gracie Abrams in a new light.
“Together, the 16 songs offer a glimpse into the inner mind of a young woman striving to shed the stubborn armor of adolescence and redirect her sharp tongue, all in hopes of becoming a version of her patient, graceful mother,” Wang writes.
Wang sees each song illustrating a unique purpose and vital emotional milestone, from “silent sobs” to “playful hits” to “breakdowns and identity crises.”
The familiarity of “Daughter From Hell” is something positive in this review, as Abrams, in Wang’s words, is “learning how to find the comfort she once felt in childhood in little pockets of her new life.”
The Times
For the UK publication, chief rock critic Will Hodgkinson anoints Abrams the “reigning queen” of proclaiming a “parlous emotional state.”
With “Daughter From Hell,” Hodgkinson questions what adolescent behavior Abrams is apologizing for. Abrams is the daughter of “Star Wars” director/producer J.J Abrams and production executive Katie McGrath, and has been outspoken about her famous lineage.
“Daughter from Hell finds her apologizing for being a terrible teen over suitably rebellious distorted guitar but she doesn’t actually list her crimes, which makes you wonder if they happened in the first place.”
Rolling Stone
In a rave review amounting to four and a half stars, senior music writer Angie Martoccio identifies the high stakes of Abrams’ third album release. In “Daughter From Hell,” Abrams admits to the hardships the spotlight has brought her.
“It’s her best album yet, 16 tracks that sparkle with angst, beauty, and all the baggage that comes with adulthood,” Martoccio says.
Martoccio doesn’t perceive “Daughter From Hell” as “sounding too similar” or “bleeding into” other Abrams’ works.
“She obliterates that notion in ‘Daughter From Hell,’ which she co-produced with Dessner, digging deep and experimenting more than ever before.”
Associated Press
In her review for AP, editor Elise Ryan recognizes the album is written in Abrams’ comfort zone, but remains impressed by the new album’s “broader array of instruments and production styles.”
“The resulting 16 tracks live up to the bigger arenas she now fills, even if many of the songs feel like a return to her introspective form,” Ryan says.
Ryan hears, in the album, an evolution in her work.
“Her voice, occasionally lowered to a bedroom-pop whisper (fans of her early work will be drawn to the lilting “Good Reason” and the sweet and synthy “Afflictions”), has strengthened since her restrained debut, 2023’s “Good Riddance,” Ryan says.
The Guardian
Despite its sharp exterior, Laura Snapes sees “Daughter From Hell” as “bloodless record” disguised as a “full-blown crime scene.”
Snapes lists the plethora of vividly violent metaphors in Abrams storytelling, from “slip knots, blades, bullets” to “flaming tires, choking, burning houses.”
She says the real “uncrackable case” of the album is “the dissonance between Abrams’ goth-coded emotional turbulence and the music’s insistent, quivering prettiness is the real uncrackable case.”
She questions where Abrams marks any originality outside “traditional repeating pop structures.”
“We never really learn how she raised hell,” Snapes ultimately says.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
