Madi Diaz makes raw, piercing, intensely personal songs that feel like they could expand into anthems. She occupies a weird, intermediary position between the most inward-focused singer-songwriter’s art and the world of commercial pop. For instance, you could hardly ask for a more self-lacerating end-of-the-relationship song than “Feel Something,” with its urgent strumming, its keening verses about break-up sex, its anguished plea to “feel something.” And yet you can also imagine the tune in the hands of a pop diva, its payoff blown out into arena-filling belts and sing-along communal angst. “If so how, if not why, if I can, why can’t I…feel,” could easily be a battle cry, not the tamped down confessional that Diaz delivers.
That makes sense because Diaz has the reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter, an underappreciated talent who has, nonetheless, been nominated for two Grammys and opened for Harry Styles. This third full-length completes a heart-torn trilogy that started with 2021’s History of a Feeling and ran through the 2024 break-out Weird Faith (the one that got her the Grammy nods). It is a largely solo, mostly acoustic effort, just voice and unamplified guitar, the sound stripped and scrubbed raw for maximum harrowing appeal.
There are moments of solace here—the pretty harmonies of “Good Liar,” the lattice work picking of “If Time Does What It’s Supposed To,” but the overall vibe is bracing. Diaz is dry-eyed and full of clarity, but newly so, as if she’s been up all night crying and can’t anymore.
“Heavy Metal” hints at intergenerational trauma, a fight-or-flight impulse burned in from childhood on, but Diaz isn’t looking for pity, and indeed, seems to be coming to some sort of resolution as the album goes on. “I wouldn't wanna be any different/My idealism makes me self-defensive/Don't make me take off my gloves/I'll show you what I'm made of,” she croons against the steady strum of guitar, and the message, like the voice, is tough and defiant and proud of the progress she’s made.
These are gnarly, inward-focused songs, but if you listen carefully, you can hear how a different sort of delivery—big voice, big drums, slashing guitars—could turn them into a female-centric version of emo-rock. Even if you appreciate the way the music works here, you might still wonder what that larger scale version would sound like.
