Gracie Abrams - Daughter From Hell
Gracie Abrams doesn't even try to surprise the listener on her third studio album.
The phenomenon of Gracie Abrams in modern pop culture remains one of the hardest to explain. Her music never resonated strongly enough with the indie scene to earn the devoted following that singer-songwriter artists often enjoy, yet her songs are not quite "pop" enough for her to become a true pop-culture icon. Her third album, Daughter from Hell, could have shattered this invisible barrier, but instead it offers very little that feels fresh or exciting.
At its core, Daughter from Hell is a musical continuation of her 2024 album The Secret of Us, which itself felt like an extension of her debut, Good Riddance (2023). Most of Abrams' work is built around muted guitar and piano motifs, and that formula is slowly becoming a serious problem. She is, in fact, a talented lyricist, but her songwriting often gets lost in shapeless arrangements and repetitive vocal harmonies. Take the love ballad "Good Reason", which bears a striking resemblance to one of her biggest hits, "I Love You, I'm Sorry".
That said, the album still contains several genuinely strong moments. Lead single "Hit The Wall" draws heavily from lush indietronica, and Abrams sounds absolutely stunning here. The song feels like a painful conversation with oneself before she quite literally soars above the listener during the bridge. "Look at My Life", co-written with Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan producer Dan Nigro, sparkles with synths in the finest indie-pop tradition, even if Abrams seems to have little left to say lyrically. "I miss my friends, I disappeared and haven't seen 'em in a year", she confesses, and the track plays like an ode to emotional collapse. The album's most beautiful moment arrives on the title track, "Daughter from Hell", where Abrams seems to dissolve into the haze of a bass guitar. This is precisely the sonic direction in which she sounds flawless.
"Death Wish", which recalls Noah Kahan's country-tinged sketches and which Abrams had been teasing for more than a year, also makes the tracklist. It is yet another love story about a girl dating an emotionally frozen narcissist. The song is undeniably pleasant, but its appeal lasts for roughly a minute before the focus begins to fade. Troubled relationships with men become the central theme of "Men Like You," one of the few songs that truly hits an emotional nerve. "If all you ever wanted was a golden ticket / You could've just said it / It would've saved me time", Abrams sings, sounding more fearless than ever. Piano also takes center stage on "Mews", where she confronts her lover in an attempt to find closure. "When you called me naive, did you mean to a fault?" she sings, before a rush of strings storms into the song and rescues it from collapsing into self-imitation.
The problem with Daughter from Hell is that it only has enough momentum for its first five or six tracks. After that, the record seems to buckle under its own weight. It does not merely become repetitive — it starts to suffocate the listener, with the songs in its second half gradually blending into a monotonous blur. The sentimental "Broke My Heart" is supposed to leave you in tears, but instead it feels like an outtake from Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department — another bloated album capable of exhausting its audience. The brief sketch "Imaginary Friend", which barely lasts more than two minutes, never manages to establish a mood and ends as unremarkably as it begins.
At times, it feels as though Gracie herself was bored while making this album. "I'm at the party minibar / Came here alone, bet you can't tell", she sings on the two-minute "Minibar", yet she sounds as if she has wandered into a funeral procession. Her detachment reaches its peak on "Sober", a toothless take on "Hey There Delilah" built largely around a simplistic acoustic guitar. Instead of telling a compelling love story, Abrams practically lulls the listener to sleep, functioning more like a sedative than a songwriter. Even the collaboration with Marcus Mumford fails to save Daughter from Hell. Their duet feels like the kind of filler track that could have appeared on either artist's album — and nobody would have noticed if it had been left off the tracklist entirely.
The songs on Daughter from Hell are not necessarily bad. Most of them are simply dull. There are no sharp turns or genuinely surprising moments. The album feels like stale air in a room that has not been opened for a week. It is not enough to kill you, but it certainly makes you want to throw open a window, breathe in some fresh air, and feel a light breeze on your skin. Unfortunately, there is nothing on Gracie Abrams' third album that provides that sense of renewal. For the most part, if you've heard any of her previous records, then you've already heard Daughter from Hell.
5.8/10
