Mali Velasquez Embarks on a Series of Beginnings with 'I'm Green'

"I drive you to the ER / But don't feel old enough," Mali Velasquez observes on "Turn Red," the kind of meditation-in-an-emergency Frank O'Hara (and Cameron Awkward-Rich thereafter) have poeticized. Interpreted in the realm of inexperience, the Texas-born songwriter's debut album, I'm Green, is a reassuring hug for the child within.

Velasquez opens the album with "Bobby," stating this in the first line: "You were older, older than me," almost managing to hide her distinctively earnest vocal fry before it comes crashing through in the first syllable of the following line, "Sucking on a sponge as your cancerous lungs tried to breathe." The album eulogizes the loss of Velasquez's mother — a loss that comes with the type of underlying grief that bubbles up in everything. Yet, as she remarks on "Clovers," "No one seems to wonder how I carry on."

I'm Green doesn't let naivety affect its stately musical prowess, Velasquez crafting wistfully resplendent textures that can lean into finger-plucking folk tradition and indie rock in equal measure. It's a balancing act Velasquez makes effortless with this cohesive, no-skip collection — although the way the outro of "Bobby" bleeds into "Shove," which could as much be considered a coda of the former than a song of its own, is a difficult transition to best. There's something about the innocence of beginnings.