Most people probably love illuminati hotties at their most wonky and unhinged, but I've always appreciated their ability to exercise restraint. It's something that shines through on Sarah Tudzin's work behind the boards, having become somewhat of an indie answer to Jack Antonoff's continued pop dominance over these past few years. She and North Carolina-born singer-songwriter Eliza McLamb's willingness to relish in the peaks and valleys of both sound and content — and a shared sense of humour — make them a winning match on Going Through It.
Something missing from Tudzin's own work with illuminati hotties, however, presents in spades across McLamb's debut album: an inherent appreciation for beauty. Even at their crunchiest and most fuzzed-out, the guitars maintain a gleam; even when McLamb's voice is at its snarliest, it's still pretty. There's something sublime about it, a romantic awe — like the Gothic literary archetype, it makes for the ultimate foil to the fear of death.
Riding on an exemplary breezy effortlessness and bright synth splashes, "Anything You Want" proves this to be the ideal vehicle to express the mortifying ordeal of being known, as McLamb tempers the competing urges to be truly seen and to remain a sexy mystery forever. She sings about throwing up in the shower with an undeniable grace, but lets it rip, screaming in the background of the final chorus. Her urgency grows as she compares herself to an outlet mall parking lot and an Everclear on the rocks before finally admitting that, ideally, she could build herself into anything you want her to be. She knows she could; she's done it before.
"Mythologize Me" is a deftly chosen lead single; its title alone drew me in, especially in a year where everyone on the internet became obsessed with the word "lore." (McLamb herself buys into this, noting the reverence she held for recording the album at Bear Creek Studio, where Big Thief tracked U.F.O.F.) The chorus is constructed as a dream singalong of mass catharsis: "Make me in your perfect image of a girl / So sweet, but always incomplete and grateful for / Your needs to give me meaning / Oh what a relief from feeling." Its final line is an exasperated surrender known all too well, as McLamb sings, "All I can do is fantasize about how you fantasize about me," ending in a deadpan so artful you can practically hear the accompanying eye-roll.
The need for relief from feeling is best shown in the childhood vignettes of her intrinsically sensitive nature on "Crybaby" — remembering holding funerals for roadkill, hating soccer because she didn't want to steal the ball — that are a poignant self-portrait of McLamb's individuality, making the listener feel like they know her ("I am not a cynic, I always need something to love"). Immediately after, she brings them deep into her trauma on "16," a year of McLamb's life that press notes describe as one of "familial and personal turmoil."
She opens it with a list of others' desires: her father's girlfriend wanting to take her to yoga classes, her father wanting her to stop cutting herself, the hospital wanting to let her mother go home. "I said, 'I won't give consent for that over the phone,'" McLamb sings slowly, vocal effects distancing her from the tumultuous pace at which she was forced to grow up.
I can only speak from my own personal experience, but hell is being a teenage girl. That same year of my life that McLamb saw her parents' fallibility and felt herself become a burden — "'I don't know what to do with you,' you say it often / It almost sounds like a good excuse for doing nothing" — happened to me, too, albeit in a very different way. Except maybe it wasn't that different at all. It's a crucial and devastating tearing of the fabric of promises that had been made to you; an age where a lot of young women find themselves desperate to grow up fast for the sake of autonomy, while others are forced into maturing way faster by coming to terms with the lack thereof.
Softly whimsical album opener "Before" is a fitting prelude, as McLamb yearns for "the time before knowing," wistfully singing, "I wish there were things I never understood." This reverence for girlhood is timed wildly well with the ongoing cultural renaissance of women both romanticizing the innocence they once held and reclaiming what it means to them.
I resent the idea that I'm supposed to compare anyone's art to anyone else's, especially when it comes to women. It gives you a foothold, sure, but it's how stuff like "sad girl music" gets commodified into a disposable-feeling trend — and hits at the Achilles heel where societal pressures force us to define ourselves in competitive opposition. And crucially, whatever touchstones may be present in her music, McLamb's myth-making is all her own.
She addresses this on late-album highlight "Modern Woman," gassing herself up for crying in a way that's not pathetic (you just wouldn't get it!) and lamenting the marketability of her misery: "Sad girl sings a simple song / All the others sing along." On that same song, she masterfully rhymes "Instagram" and "deli ham," and if that doesn't perfectly encapsulate the messiness of modern womanhood, I don't know what does.
Going Through It documents McLamb's journey to find gratitude (quite literally on the glittering, finger-plucked meditation "To Wake Up") — and her true self — amid the chaos of other people's needs, remarking, "Isn't it great what I made of it?" As the old adage goes, it's the only way out.
(Royal Mountain Records)Something missing from Tudzin's own work with illuminati hotties, however, presents in spades across McLamb's debut album: an inherent appreciation for beauty. Even at their crunchiest and most fuzzed-out, the guitars maintain a gleam; even when McLamb's voice is at its snarliest, it's still pretty. There's something sublime about it, a romantic awe — like the Gothic literary archetype, it makes for the ultimate foil to the fear of death.
Riding on an exemplary breezy effortlessness and bright synth splashes, "Anything You Want" proves this to be the ideal vehicle to express the mortifying ordeal of being known, as McLamb tempers the competing urges to be truly seen and to remain a sexy mystery forever. She sings about throwing up in the shower with an undeniable grace, but lets it rip, screaming in the background of the final chorus. Her urgency grows as she compares herself to an outlet mall parking lot and an Everclear on the rocks before finally admitting that, ideally, she could build herself into anything you want her to be. She knows she could; she's done it before.
"Mythologize Me" is a deftly chosen lead single; its title alone drew me in, especially in a year where everyone on the internet became obsessed with the word "lore." (McLamb herself buys into this, noting the reverence she held for recording the album at Bear Creek Studio, where Big Thief tracked U.F.O.F.) The chorus is constructed as a dream singalong of mass catharsis: "Make me in your perfect image of a girl / So sweet, but always incomplete and grateful for / Your needs to give me meaning / Oh what a relief from feeling." Its final line is an exasperated surrender known all too well, as McLamb sings, "All I can do is fantasize about how you fantasize about me," ending in a deadpan so artful you can practically hear the accompanying eye-roll.
The need for relief from feeling is best shown in the childhood vignettes of her intrinsically sensitive nature on "Crybaby" — remembering holding funerals for roadkill, hating soccer because she didn't want to steal the ball — that are a poignant self-portrait of McLamb's individuality, making the listener feel like they know her ("I am not a cynic, I always need something to love"). Immediately after, she brings them deep into her trauma on "16," a year of McLamb's life that press notes describe as one of "familial and personal turmoil."
She opens it with a list of others' desires: her father's girlfriend wanting to take her to yoga classes, her father wanting her to stop cutting herself, the hospital wanting to let her mother go home. "I said, 'I won't give consent for that over the phone,'" McLamb sings slowly, vocal effects distancing her from the tumultuous pace at which she was forced to grow up.
I can only speak from my own personal experience, but hell is being a teenage girl. That same year of my life that McLamb saw her parents' fallibility and felt herself become a burden — "'I don't know what to do with you,' you say it often / It almost sounds like a good excuse for doing nothing" — happened to me, too, albeit in a very different way. Except maybe it wasn't that different at all. It's a crucial and devastating tearing of the fabric of promises that had been made to you; an age where a lot of young women find themselves desperate to grow up fast for the sake of autonomy, while others are forced into maturing way faster by coming to terms with the lack thereof.
Softly whimsical album opener "Before" is a fitting prelude, as McLamb yearns for "the time before knowing," wistfully singing, "I wish there were things I never understood." This reverence for girlhood is timed wildly well with the ongoing cultural renaissance of women both romanticizing the innocence they once held and reclaiming what it means to them.
I resent the idea that I'm supposed to compare anyone's art to anyone else's, especially when it comes to women. It gives you a foothold, sure, but it's how stuff like "sad girl music" gets commodified into a disposable-feeling trend — and hits at the Achilles heel where societal pressures force us to define ourselves in competitive opposition. And crucially, whatever touchstones may be present in her music, McLamb's myth-making is all her own.
She addresses this on late-album highlight "Modern Woman," gassing herself up for crying in a way that's not pathetic (you just wouldn't get it!) and lamenting the marketability of her misery: "Sad girl sings a simple song / All the others sing along." On that same song, she masterfully rhymes "Instagram" and "deli ham," and if that doesn't perfectly encapsulate the messiness of modern womanhood, I don't know what does.
Going Through It documents McLamb's journey to find gratitude (quite literally on the glittering, finger-plucked meditation "To Wake Up") — and her true self — amid the chaos of other people's needs, remarking, "Isn't it great what I made of it?" As the old adage goes, it's the only way out.