Angie McMahon is a master of the affirmation anthem. If the Australian singer-songwriter — who plays Toronto's Axis Club tonight — hadn't already proven that on last year's Light, Dark, Light Again, she's continued to make her case with last month's "Just Like North" and new single "Untangling," which leads the upcoming EP Light Sides.
This brand of "inspirational" messaging in the crackling fire-warmth of her indie rock isn't cheesy or overwrought. McMahon's lyrics feel revelatory in real time, and she sings them with an undeniable conviction, cracking open a wide horizon of possibility for someone to find her songs at the right moment in time.
Because sometimes, we don't realize how much we need that: the super-charged empathy that comes from someone echoing our own struggles in their music, twisting our feelings of being stuck into even the slightest semblance of uplift. The percussion helps propels you, like the forward motion you can't perceive when the changes are happening slow.
When McMahon repeats, "Go angel, it's okay / Sometimes things are gonna feel this way," she's reassuring herself, but speaking directly to you. "I am untangling you from my centre" becomes mantra in under four minutes, with shimmering layers of guitars feathering it into a phrase that will lodge itself in your side like a bur; something soft that sticks.