"Nothing's bringing colour to my cheeks," sings Australian Sarah Mary Chadwick on "Please Daddy," the title track of her latest album. The ability to articulate the dull kind of pain that pervades the everyday is just one of the album's many accomplishments. Bolstered by the weight of Chadwick's rumbling, thunderous voice, and often embellished with subtle detail like woodwind melodies, Chadwick's tracks are a maudlin portrait of quotidian tragedy.
In "I'm Not Allowed in Heaven," Chadwick takes inventory of her emotional rap sheet, meditating on all the times she's gotten it wrong. "'Cause life's not about bein' happy, Sarah/ Life's not about havin' fun," she sings, scolding her younger, and perhaps present, self.
What brings to life the often spacious, simple melodies is Chadwick's deft storytelling. Most evocative, perhaps, are the throwaway details she uses to colour her songs with lived experience. "Well, I don't think about you at all, not since that wet day on the hill," she sings on "All Lies." She withholds any further context, but the anguish of Chadwick's voice fills in the important gaps.
(Sinderlyn)In "I'm Not Allowed in Heaven," Chadwick takes inventory of her emotional rap sheet, meditating on all the times she's gotten it wrong. "'Cause life's not about bein' happy, Sarah/ Life's not about havin' fun," she sings, scolding her younger, and perhaps present, self.
What brings to life the often spacious, simple melodies is Chadwick's deft storytelling. Most evocative, perhaps, are the throwaway details she uses to colour her songs with lived experience. "Well, I don't think about you at all, not since that wet day on the hill," she sings on "All Lies." She withholds any further context, but the anguish of Chadwick's voice fills in the important gaps.