Talia Grace undergoes a powerful and cathartic journey of love, loss and liberation on her debut EP
Thanks to the raw and intimate nature of her stripped-back sound and the honesty that she pours into her work, Talia Grace has been winning over the hearts of listeners over the last few years with a steady stream of singles that have established the engrossing and stirring nature of her sound. The artist has now released her debut EP From Under You, a thoughtful and relatable collection of tracks that provide the most succinct and captivating showcase of her sound and style to date.
The EP starts with ‘The Girl Before the Girl’, a track that many listeners will unfortunately find painfully resonating and relatable thanks to the brutally honest and introspective nature of the lyrics. The track utilises the quietly powerful nature of the artist’s sound to express her feelings that she is often a stepping stone for the people she gets involved with romantically, not their long term partner but for someone to pass the time until she meets them, this narrative and the emotion that is etched into her vocals makes for a heartbreaking and moving listen that will stick with you for long after you hear it.
The sobering narratives continue through to ‘Lavender Latte’, a track about a thoughtful conversation over a cup of coffee that leads you to realise that the other person you’re involved with doesn’t feel the same way as you, and your lose is left unrequited. The soundscape here has some more splashes of colour to it that bring the sound to life and give it a sense of warmth throughout, but that sinking feeling continues to be the overriding emotion that is felt on the second track.
Things take a serious but ultimately cathartic turn on ‘Smoke’, a track that sees the artist exploring sexual assault and the way that being a survivor changes you, the way that it strips you of your identity and makes you feel like a shell of your former self thanks to the cruelness of someone else’s heinous acts. The atmospheric feel of the strings and vocals here gives the sound the sense of gravity and importance that such a topic deserves, and makes for powerful and compelling listening that sees the artist defiant as she looks to reclaim what has been stolen from her, writing the track as an unabashed open letter to the other person.
The EP closes with ‘Greedy Reminders’, a track that feels like it takes the negativity and the scarring memories of the previous tracks and looks to move forward from them and allow the artist set herself free from the shackles of her past. It offers a glimpse of optimism on an EP that has felt harrowingly human and dark at times, giving the collection of tracks instead a feeling of perseverance, a reminder of everything that the artist has been through and emerged the other side.
The EP as a whole has a tone of defiance and an understated power to it, with the final track contextualising it in a way that feels more like liberation than sadness. This EP is a way of the artist freeing herself from these experiences and being able to set the past alight and find herself reborn in the flames. Whether it is casual and relatable topics like unfortunate romantic encounters, or more serious subjects that the artist felt that she had to write about, by doing so she has exorcised her demons and let go of them, at least to an extent, and it makes for compelling and riveting listening as someone who is going through this journey with her every step of the way in just four tracks.
