ALBUM REVIEW: Sophie Yera - Final Girl

Sophie Yera's Final Girl is a swirling, atmospheric alt-pop extravaganza that makes for a compelling debut.

Reviewed by Alex "Ash" Han

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As always, before reading this review, please support Sophie Yera and stream Final Girl! Sophie's Linktree contains links where you can stream the project on all platforms.

 

I WAS A STRANGER TO THE MUSIC of Sophie Yera until we crossed paths (albeit as strangers, at least at the time) in a listening session two or three semesters ago, in what was then called Collegium. It was there that Sophie's version of the Gnarls Barkley track "Crazy" first saw the light of day. As a listener at the time, I remembered being intrigued by the decision to open one's introduction to the MTech community with a cover song, but also being no less impressed by the radical restructuring of the track into a rendition that felt very much unique. I believe it was the following semester (or maybe the following academic year? Jesus, I'm getting old & my memory's slipping) when Sophie made her debut on the MTech Invasion stage at last November's Invasion 2.0, followed by a sequel appearance just last month at Invasion 3. On both occasions, she showcased a strong stage presence marked by a high-fashion aesthetic and a plaintive vocal style, accompanied by enticing glimpses into the material which today finds itself at the focus of this article. Sophie Yera's debut LP, Final Girl, comes three years after her 2021 4-song EP Bad Trip. At a compact seven tracks in length, the album was nonetheless accompanied by an impressive promotional effort, consisting of not only both Invasion performances but also a sizeable Instagram promo run that drew plenty of attention from inside MTech. Having remained mostly unfamiliar with Sophie's music outside of the limited exposure I'd had from sharing the stage with her at Invasion, I went into this project more intrigued than anything to see how her live stage presence would translate to the studio, and just what that would mean for how listeners would begin to perceive Sophie Yera as an artist.

The LP opens with "Crazy", a swirling, atmospheric reinterpretation of the 2006 Gnarls Barkley classic. Sophie brings an airy, disaffected vocal performance over luscious synth pads and a steady sub bass—definitely a heavy vibe switch from the original's spaghetti-Western string samples and dusty drum groove. The song's structure also appears to have been altered slightly, with an extra prechorus added near the beginning, introducing a steady four-on-the-floor kick drum augmented by some distant reverb. On first listen, I wasn't sure I was a fan of the slow burn restructuring of the track; I found that I missed the relentless, pounding momentum of the Gnarls Barkley original, and the vocals had a slightly telephonic, sibilant quality to them that I didn't love. Right before the track's chorus, though, there is a moment where Sophie's lead vocal trails off into nothing as the pads hang in the air a bit and the kick pulse fades away into a reverby soup—the track lets us breathe for just a second or two before the drums come crashing in and Sophie's distorted, keening belt roars into focus. The beat drop on this track goes super hard; I love the sound selection of the giant, cinematic pads and the pseudo-trap drums that harken back to the dusty, apocalyptic quality of the original song. Sophie's vocal sound is also really nice here, fed through a distorted amp sim that gives enough harshness and character to really advance the unhinged, off-the-rails nature of the performance without sacrificing too much intelligibility. This one chorus is all we get, however, as the track soon drops into its outro section, buoyed by an octave-shifted vocal that takes us down and out of the song. As much respect as I do have for the decision to open the album with a reinterpretation of a song that is as much of a timeless classic as this one is, I found Sophie's take on the song to be novel and tasteful, keeping the track's meteoric chorus and rapturous atmosphere while also radically reformatting its structure to accommodate the long buildup and cathartic drop into the chorus. I did feel as though the engineering on this track left a little to be desired—the mix feels a little hollow, with plenty of sub bass and an abundance of high-end frequency content, but without much in the way of low mids to fill the track out and give it a solid foundation. Nonetheless, the track does make for a strong opener, albeit one that left me curious to hear what Sophie's own writing would bring to the album's narrative & style on subsequent tracks.

A steady kick drum and distorted, trippy synth bass opens the album's second track, "Crystal Lake", which also features contributions from Space Hotel. Sophie contributes a number of stacked layers—a distant, legato series of backing vocals, a breezy, apathetic lead vocal, several almost-intelligible whispers that tease the listener with snatches of lyrics here and there. I was really struck by the sound design on this track, which combines retro, warm, slightly wobbly synth patches with punchy, modern, in-your-face drums to create a convincingly vintage horror-movie-like atmosphere. Sophie's delivery here reminds me of a cross between Elizabeth Fraser and Tate McRae, combining current post-Billie Eilish and Lizzy McAlpine airy whisper-vocals with an almost-shoegaze set of inflections that obscure and smear lyrics in favor of creating a cavernous, glassy soundscape. I found that I had trouble understanding a lot of the lyrics for this song, which likely meant the narrative of the track escaped my grasp somewhat, but this wasn't necessarily a point of contention with the track for me. Its approach to creating an atmosphere through sound design nevertheless left an impression with me, and provided an intriguing first glimpse into Sophie's artistic identity.

"Gone Girl" switches up the vibe again, opening with a woozy, washed-out minor acoustic guitar recording augmented with either static or the sound of distant rain. Soon enough, Sophie's trademark heavy kick pulse and ominous synthesizers enter alongside, providing the track with an instant increase in scale, propelling it to titanic, cinematic heights. Sophie delivers a deadpan first verse, discussing a breakup through a disaffected veil that belies a complicated emotional context underneath the surface. The track's next section sees her drift into a lilting, airy falsetto through a hefty dose of Autotune, giving her a robotic edge that I really enjoyed. The touches of reverby, tremolo-heavy electric guitar were a really nice touch that lent a distinctly James Bond sort of feel to the track's soundscape. The track's last verse, where Sophie's spoken deadpan and Autotuned head voice trade lines in tandem, felt like a solid way to end off the track. I nonetheless felt a little confused by this one, specifically in regards to its structure, or lack thereof; on first listen, I found myself having been fooled multiple times into thinking I was hearing a chorus, only to later realize that none of the sections I identified repeated or formed any sort of tangible hook. I suppose I respect Sophie's commitment to through-composed songwriting, but I think on a track like this, I would have preferred the lyrics to be a little more intelligible in order to understand the emotional arc a bit better. I still very much enjoyed Sophie's experimentation with regards to her vocal chain on this one, and her ability to create a swirling, dark soundscape remained as strong as ever.

Track 4 is called "Drew's Interlude", and opens with a true gut punch of a line ("I can't keep you safe from me"), which is perhaps one of my favorite lines on the album. The soundscape on this track is a little more superficially upbeat than on the tracks that preceded it, with plenty of sparkly synth chords and tinkly bells providing an interesting contrast to the song's firmly minor-key aesthetic. The subtle open hats, steady kick, and subdued clap samples lend the track a really strong groove, perhaps the most danceable on the album so far, drawing some sonic influence from The Weeknd and Dua Lipa's experimentation with the dark '80s/new wave aesthetic. The dynamic motion of the track is also maintained really well, with elements constantly dropping out and reappearing to create clear sections and movement. The bridge also sees one of my favorite vocal moments from Sophie on the album, as her vocal steadily builds towards plaintive, pleading high notes that sound excellent as she asks, "Am I the cause?" over and over. After listening a couple times, "Drew's Interlude" is a personal highlight from the album for me. The track's strong chorus, heartfelt lyricism, and danceable groove all merge together into a juggernaut pop song that made a very strong case for Sophie's unique talents as a songwriter and performer.

"This album is a reflection of my experiences of the past few years of college… Musically, I was inspired by Grimes, Lil Peep, Ethel Cain, and Gorillaz." –Sophie Yera

 

"Till Death Do Us Part" keeps the dance aesthetic going, opening with heavily-sidechained synth chords that articulate sweet seventh chords over a subdued, chill drum groove. Sophie's vocal layering came through especially nicely here, with some tight doubles reinforcing and bulking up the lead vocal without smearing over the lyrics too much; the overall styling reminded me a lot of MGMT and Empire of the Sun, an aesthetic Sophie pulls off remarkably well. The track's chorus is also really strong, with a slight switch in the chord progression providing us with a sense of forward movement to accompany the repetitions of "I think I'm free". The second verse also brings a handful of fun vocal moments, such as the literal pause for breath after the line "I feel like I can finally breathe", which put a smile on my face! "Till Death Do Us Part" was another favorite of mine, representing the album's continued shift towards a heavier dancepop aesthetic. The track's catchy melodies & sublime production together make a rather strong showcase that Sophie can hold her own as a dancepop artist as well as in the dark & atmospheric soundscapes that outlined much of the album's first half.

The album's penultimate track, "BLACKOUT", opens with a minor guitar line that very much reminds me of early 2000s post-grunge bands like Fuel and Puddle of Mudd, pairing a woozy, broken-chords pattern with a soaring, distorted lead. The pairing of the guitar line with the thick sub and flickering trap drums makes for a combo I actually really enjoyed, again calling back to The Weeknd's mid-2010s output. Sophie's octave-doubled vocal, paired with a distorted, pitch-shifted version of itself, creates a suitably demented atmosphere without reducing intelligibility too much. Her lyrics discuss the sensation of being too drunk after a night of clubbing, a subject she manages to portray in a uniquely slinky, menacing manner on account of the track's dark musicality and reverb-heavy percussion. With the track's catchy repeated chorus of "I can't feel anything at all" and strong verses combined with the grungy trap instrumental, this track is a definite vibe switch that nonetheless gels perfectly with Sophie's aesthetic. "BLACKOUT" was another definite standout track for me, and one that I'll definitely continue listening to down the road!

The album closes with its title track, which opens with a dramatic string orchestra and synth pads together in tandem as Sophie whispers distantly from the background. On first listen, I wish I could understand the whispered vocal a little better in order to get at the narrative of the album a little more. The synth pads support while at once ceding the spotlight to Sophie's theatrical vocal performance, as she meditates on every iteration of herself she's been through in order to reach this point. Like the opener, this track embraces a sort of slow burn aesthetic, staying in a stripped-back downtempo soundscape for much of the track's duration before bringing in some drums and upping the pulse in the track's outro section, which sees Sophie distantly belting out some sustained melodic lines in a way that almost reminds me a little of Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky" off of The Dark Side of the Moon. Part of me does wish this outro soared a little bit more—I found myself really wishing for a greater sense of catharsis, whether that means more aggressive drums, a more beefy instrumental, a more freeing vocal performance from Sophie. As much as I do respect the decision to keep it a little more constrained and lowkey, I felt like it didn't fully deliver the sense of closure I wanted to really wrap up this album. All the same, though, maybe leaving it slightly open-ended is intentional, and serves a larger purpose I'm not fully seeing—so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Either way, this title track does an excellent job at stripping back the layers of persona progressively built up over the album in attempt to remind us of Sophie's very human vulnerabilities once more.

Looking back on Final Girl as a whole, I think it makes for a commendable debut project that does a lot to solidify Sophie's artistic identity. The moody, synthy, atmospheric production and detached, slightly deadpan vocal stylings over steady, resolute drum grooves paints a clear picture of the under-the-surface emotional turmoil that drove this album's creation. Indeed, Sophie's skill in using sound design and production to create vivid images is a potent strength of this project. The use of reverb in combination with dark synth patches creates a consistent vibe that matches much of the promotional material for this project—heavy with grays and blacks, the life & color squeezed from the landscape like the sickly pale of the recently departed. Sophie's vocal style descends from the school of Lorde, and more recently, Billie Eilish, embracing a similar teen Goth/alternative pop aesthetic in its detachment from explicit emotion. Additionally, as a writer of melodies, Sophie proves to be capable of penning catchy melodic shapes that do a consistently excellent job at hooking the listener's ear. In this way, Final Girl does a lot to highlight and showcase many of the artistic strengths that make Sophie Yera unique.

 

"The album explores themes of adolescence, love, friendship, and betrayal through the lens of the final girl archetype. I was really inspired by this trope found in horror films because I'm a cinephile." –Sophie Yera

I do have a couple points of contention with the project, though, some more nitpicky than others! I think that the project could have started and ended more strongly—the use of two slow burn-style tracks for both the opener and the closer was something that I felt robbed the album of some of the energy of its opening entrance and the closure & catharsis of its stage exit. I found that the vocal mixes on many of the tracks, especially the more atmospheric tracks ("Crystal Lake", "Gone Girl", the title track, and the opening half of "Crazy" most of all) had a tendency to lean towards being telephonic, sweeping out a ton of low-mid frequency information and accenting sibilant frequencies in a way that ended up making them slightly piercing. Under normal circumstances, this might not have impacted my enjoyment of the project too much, but the aforementioned vocal mixing decisions in synergy with the liberal use of reverb had the combined effect of smearing out Sophie's lyrics, rendering them quite difficult to understand on a lot of tracks. Try as I might across multiple listens, I was unable to discern what was being said at many moments throughout the project. As a result, I'm afraid that the higher themes and overarching narrative of this project mostly eluded me and remained beyond my understanding—which is a shame, since the stated premise of Final Girl being based upon the eponymous horror movie archetype is an intriguing one, and I wish I was able to delve further into Sophie's exploration of that idea. Of course, there are exceptions to this issue; "Till Death Do Us Part" and "BLACKOUT" especially were generally easy to follow, but this felt like too little material for me to draw sweeping conclusions about the themes of the project as a whole. (It's also likely no small coincidence that the three tracks I found most intelligible are likely my favorites from the album overall.) It pains me to say, but I feel as though I am still uncertain about what exactly Sophie's story is. While Sophie's showcase of her artistic aesthetic and sonic image is a very strong one, the resultant lack of insight into her songwriting and lyrics leaves something of a blank spot in the album's lasting impression—which is a part of this debut project I cannot ignore.

Still, though, there are a great many things this project does well. Maybe this is just me waxing nostalgic for a moment, but I actually found that it reminded me a lot of my own debut project in a lot of ways: rough around the edges in some areas, sure, but no less earnest & heartfelt in its illumination of what the path ahead might look for Sophie. The album's forays into uptempo dance on "Drew's Interlude" and "Till Death Do Us Part" were undoubtedly my favorite moments on the project, followed closely by the exploration of grungy pop-trap on "BLACKOUT"; all three tracks show very exciting glimpses into very catchy alt-pop territory that feels very her, and teases an artistic space that Sophie can well and truly make her own. I remain ever more excited to see what she brings us from here, and will wait eagerly to see which direction she chooses as she continues to forge her own path.

Personal enjoyment score: 7 out of 10

Standout tracks: "Crystal Lake", "Drew's Interlude", "Till Death Do Us Part", "BLACKOUT"

EP REVIEW: Noraaa - Piece of Mind

 Noraaa's Piece of Mind is a well-rounded debut chock-full of soul, encapsulating a poignant brand of early-adulthood vulnerability.

Reviewed by Troy Embe, edited by Ash

 

Take a moment to listen to Piece of Mind through Noraaa's Distrokid Hyperfollow page, which contains the links to the project on Spotify, Apple Music, and iTunes!

 

FEW THINGS ARE AS UNIVERSAL as the experience of moving away from home for the first time—that first night spent sleeping in a bed that feels different from the one you grew up with, in a freshman dorm that is now your new home, across from some snoring stranger from Florida with whom you now share a living space. Those memories of freshman year are of the kind which I suspect will remain quite vivid for the rest of my life, as eighteen-year-old Troy (which is not my real name!) battled the disorientation of being plucked from a familiar place and dropped smack dab into the chaos of New York City. Evidently, as much as a formative experience as that first month away from home was for me personally, I am not the only one, as judging from her 2021 debut EP, Piece of Mind, I suspect that Noraaa, known to those of us in MTech as Nora Deely, went through a similar experience. Though this EP is just as much about love as it is about youth, Piece of Mind occupies a place in my mind that is uniquely associated with that experience of growing up and moving to a new city, and it conveys the awe and wonder of this experience through a hefty helping of warm, bedroom pop-flavored soul music imbued with a lot of musical skill. In short, Nora's first EP is an enjoyable collection of songs that serves as an effective introduction to Noraaa as an artist, showcasing her earnest songwriting, mesmerizing vocals, and nostalgic DIY production sensibilities in equal measure.

"I started writing the songs for Piece of Mind in August 2020 when I first moved to New York… It had always been a goal of mine to come out with an EP, but when I first started writing the songs I didn't think about if I would make an EP out of them, I just wanted to express my feelings." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa

 

"Infatuated" opens the story with watery guitar chords and reverb-soaked, intimate vocals. "Girl, where'd you come from?" Nora sings, her loose, flowing vibrato and plaintive delivery already solidifying her as a natural fit for this brand of old school R&B. The guitar plays warm, descending, chromatic seventh chords with a distinctly amateur-feeling vibe—by no means do I wish to say that the guitar here is badly performed, and on the contrary, I actually think it gives the music a very nice, bedroom pop feel. The chorus serves as a continuation of this aesthetic, as Nora's vocals soar into a wondrous falsetto and sparse drums and bass enter underneath. The soundscape is dripping with character, and thoroughly avoids feeling "sterile" in the way lots of studio pop songs do. The slight variations in timing between the guitar and the bass, the heavy reverb that fully saturates the listening space, Nora's expressive, tuneful, yet soft & restrained vocals—all of these things contribute to feeling like I'm sitting in Nora's freshman-year dorm room, watching her sit on the bed and work out the chords to this song on her guitar. It was here where it became evident to me that Piece of Mind was not meant to be digested as a piece of overpolished, Top 40 pop radio. It's meant to be consumed on its own terms, as a project that embraces its status as a debut, and all the imperfections implied by that status. It implies a sense of self-acceptance that I find very endearing, and shines through every facet of this project. The second chorus is followed by a key change, wherein Nora sings about coming to terms with the possibility that the person who is the object of the titular infatuation doesn't feel the same way. The mood of this key change is superb, and Nora's closing line of "And you probably don't feel the same way I do/And that's okay, that's just… fine" ends our opening track on a resolutely sad yet strangely hopeful & mature note, as the last chord fades out into the gentle electronic buzz of Nora's guitar.

The second track, "Let Go", introduces the first synthesizer appearance on the album, as a set of natural minor pad chords open this track. Nora delivers breathy mixed-voice passages as the backing track slowly builds and expands to include a bell-like synth countermelody and an analog synth bass. Nora seems to like giving her vocals a chance to sit front and center to start her songs, at least judging by the openings of both this track and the previous one, and that tendency of hers pays off here, as she performs some beautiful melismas with confident precision. A swelling riser takes us into the chorus; Nora sings "you make me wanna let go" as a chorus of backing vocals enters alongside trap hi-hats and a heavy kick that makes this feel like a Summer Walker or Usher track. I felt I was missing the snare here, as it's pushed back into the mix so far that the groove starts to get lost. I also could have done with a more well-defined bass that cut through the mix a little better, though the chorus is nonetheless extremely catchy, and the chorus of backing vocals give the hook a somewhat cloying, manic feeling that makes "Let Go" a little removed from simply being a run-of-the-mill love song. It feels almost like panic, in a way, where Nora grapples with the desire to "let go", to give in, racing against the fear of being overwhelmed in the way young love tends to do. In conclusion, although the mix could have been improved in my opinion, the vibe of this track is still something to behold, making Nora's brief venture into the aesthetics of modern trap a successful one.

"The first song I wrote [for Piece of Mind] is 'Here Now', which is a groovy song about the exciting feeling of coming to a new place, leaving the past behind, and my inner thoughts about it all. A mix of optimism and anxiety about starting to pursue my dreams of a career in music… it was a great start to this project because as I created the EP, I was doing what I was singing about in "Here Now"… taking my fresh start and working to create my own music/achieve my dreams." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa

Track three, "Here Now", is a significantly more disco-influenced track than either of the previous two, propelled by a syncopated bassline over straightforward drums. The drum sound selection here was rather interesting—having opted for a reverb-heavy clap sound instead of a typical dry disco snare alongside prominent cowbells and shakers, the rhythmic palette is diverse and channels the funky atmosphere well. The chorus brings an offbeat shaker and layers of backing vocals, which together create a sense of the track expanding outwards and becoming larger in scope. Something felt tonally off to me in the song, though, and I began to notice it particularly during this section. I think what's happening is that the leading tone in Nora's vocal melody keeps colliding with the minor seventh in the bass and chords; it was a little distracting, but nothing so disquieting that it kept me from enjoying the track. I think the mix could also be improved slightly. The backing vocals have a tendency to overtake and overwhelm the lead vocal at points, and the heavy reverb results in a loss of definition that muddies the groove a little, but the song underneath is still superb either way. This is probably the track that most heavily leans into the EP's loose narrative theme of arriving in a new place, and its presentation parallels that theme as well. Nora's vocals convey a sense of underlying anxiety as she sings about how she "came here in the summertime, music on my mind"—there's a certain degree of confidence to it, but also a slightly nervous edge that my younger self would have resonated with had I heard this song at that age. Being thrust into adulthood isn't an easy experience for anyone, and Nora's presentation of that theme feels like a consistent oscillation between anxiety and cautious self-confidence that works really well. The entrance of the horns halfway through the track is also a really nice touch. To me, this feels like the first time walking down Broadway without your parents in tow, taking in all the sights and sounds of a new city as an adult. Something weird to note about this track is that at least on Apple Music, where I'm listening, there's an extra minute or so of silence at the end of the track. I am unsure if that's a mastering error of some sort, but I thought I should mention it. Either way, "Here Now" is a nice conveyance of the experience of emerging into adulthood, and the nods to funk & disco merge with Nora's established sound quite well.

"These Days", the fourth and penultimate track on the EP, opens with Nora singing about loneliness over a sweet Rhodes electric piano as sparse drums outline a 6/8 groove. There are some really cool modal changes here, as Nora employs occasional non-diatonicisms in the chord progressions that keep things constantly shifting in a way that feels simultaneously unexpected but also wholly natural. The vulnerability of the soundscape here positions this track as being our deepest window into Nora's soul yet, as she discusses coming to terms with "having a harder time moving through life". Nora's expression of the feeling of trying to work through anxiety in order to make someone proud who has passed on comes across as thoroughly earnest & heartfelt, and cements this song as one of my favorites on the record. By the end of the song, it's clear that Nora's singing to someone specific, as the song becomes almost a letter of sorts to Gabe, who I can only assume is someone who meant very much to Nora at one point. The specifics don't even really matter all that much here; it's obvious that Nora's coming from a truly sincere and genuine place, and that passion and emotion fully comes through in what makes for perhaps the EP's most emotionally impactful moment, when Nora's vocals soar into some stunning higher passages and gently take us out of the track. It feels like Nora poured out everything she had into this song, and so "These Days" is thoroughly successful, not only as a song, but also as an expression of grief, a dedication to a loved one, a message to someone who may never hear it. In short, it's a hell of a thing, and it cuts deep in a way not many songs do for me.

"…I think I started each song a little differently. I don't like to restrict myself to specific rules when creating art, I prefer to just do whatever feels right in the moment and see where that takes me. I know for the songs 'Infatuated' and 'Lately' I started writing those songs when I was practicing for my jazz guitar lessons. I was just messing around on my guitar and suddenly I played a really nice chord progression… just like that I started writing those songs with those chords as the bass." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa

 

The EP reaches its concluding track with a song called "Lately", which begins on sweet minor guitar chords and Nora's opening line of "Lately, I've been going crazy". The song mostly leaves us in this sparse soundscape of solely vocals and guitar, but the chord changes and melodic sweeps do plenty to keep us entertained, as Nora hits some dramatic vocal lifts and falls that almost reminded me of Whitney Houston in a way. Halfway through, the track switches up slightly, as the guitar switches from strummed chords to arpeggiated passages and the song's sole backing vocal is introduced. The song embraces a certain defiance of conventional pop structure; there's no clear hook or chorus that I can detect, and it mostly reads like one long verse, but I think that's appropriate for the song's subject matter, which is mostly a dedication to a love interest, and a promise that "we'll figure it out" no matter how difficult things get. It's a simple but wonderfully romantic emotional premise that Nora once again manages to totally sell, so the song's existence as an amoebic, flowing, somewhat formless idea doesn't bother me. Nora's songwriting and vocal abilities convey the emotion of this track perfectly, and the song's themes of forging ahead and taking on challenges as they come is a strong one on which to end the EP.

 

 

"It is hard sometimes to be a musician (especially a woman in music) because it is so easy to feel like you aren't good enough or you don't know enough. But when the music just flows out of me so naturally like that, I feel like I'm on top of the world. It is that feeling that makes me want to pursue music as a career." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa

 

Debut projects have always been something I have found fascinating, to a degree. I feel like debut projects are like capturing the moment when the rose blossoms, or the butterfly emerges from the cocoon, and as such, they can tell us a great deal about an artist right from the outset as they take their proverbial first steps. In keeping with this, I felt I learned a lot about both Nora the person and Noraaa the artist through Piece of Mind. This short, five-song EP is a snapshot of what it's like to land in a new city and all of a sudden be tasked with finding yourself, and Nora conveys the inherent vulnerability, uncertainty, insecurity, and emotional circumstance of this moment with a songwriter's voice that feels both unique and universal. She wields an economical pen, crafting lyrics that always manage to use few words to say a lot. Her production and musicianship follow similar trends. Piece of Mind never risks becoming overencumbered with elements, and Nora's songs universally make only a few elements—light guitar, sparse drums, a backing vocal here and there—feel like something much larger in scope, which in my view is a far more impressive feat than making a track with 300 stems in it. Perhaps most obviously, Nora is a hell of a singer, and brings a down-to-earth and vulnerable yet unwaveringly strong voice that suits her musical pocket perfectly. This blend of traits together comprise the biggest strength of this debut, specifically in that I was able to go into this project knowing nothing about Noraaa as an artist and come out of it with a very clear sense of who she is and what she is here to do—which to me is the standard to which all debuts should aspire.

 

That said, this EP is still rough around the edges, in a way, and I think the argument could be made that that is indeed part of its appeal, but I did consistently have thoughts about the project's mixing work. This project is soaked in reverb to the point where it sometimes makes things feel smeared or blurry, which prevented me from enjoying all of the details present in Nora's production and vocals. That said, as an aesthetic choice, I think it suits Nora perfectly. To be clear, I'm not talking about the Nora Deely of the present day—I'm talking about freshman year Nora, brand new to the city, searching for love in new places, slowly piecing together these songs in her dorm room. The EP captures the experience of budding adulthood like nothing else I've heard, and all of its idiosyncrasies only add to that magical quality. At the end of it all, I believe my single biggest knock against this record is how long Nora is making us wait for more music. However, even in this regard, Nora's preempted me, and has gladly shared with us the news that she hopes to have more music out soon! So stay tuned for that—I'm sure that many of us here in New York, myself included, are eager to see what the Nora of the present day is up to, given that the Nora from semesters long since passed was able to capture our hearts so well.

Personal enjoyment score: 8.5 out of 10

Standout tracks: "Infatuated", "These Days"