Over the last four years, Gracie Abrams has skyrocketed to the top of every sad girl summer playlist. Her EP This Is What It Feels Like and last year’s debut album Good Riddance helped put her on the map while laying the groundwork for a fruitful collaborative relationship with Aaron Dessner. After a summer spent opening for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and notching a Best New Artist Grammy nomination on her belt, Abrams’ songwriting is more evocative and grown up than ever, as heard on sophomore album The Secret of Us.
The folky-pop LP is a proper showcase of Abrams’ songwriting, sharpening up some of the clichés and adolescent metaphors from her debut. The songs are a complex picture of a relationship gone sour, full of heartbreak songs that capture the messiness of dating in your early twenties. Alongside Dessner, Abrams co-wrote several of the songs with her best friend Audrey Hobert. Many of the lyrics feel as much like an open letter to an ex as it does a text relaying your deepest, darkest secrets to your closest confidant in the middle of a sleepless night.
The Secret of Us opens with the plucky track “Felt Good About You,” a song that might as well be the thesis statement of the album: “Felt good about you till I didn’t/Fell hard then I lost your interest,” she sings halfway through the song. Along with lead single “Risk,” the opening of the LP makes a good case for Abrams’ pop sensibilities, turning her often intimate, subdued sound into something more catchy, melodic and bubbly.
Still, Abrams musical comfort zone is when she’s at her most devastating and brooding. “Blowing Smoke” finds her incapable of erasing the image of an ex with a new girlfriend, spiraling out about how pretty and cool she might be. Her duet with Taylor Swift delivers as well, especially since it is very aptly Track Five on the album. (All Swiftie scholars know that a Track Five on a Swift album is typically the most emotionally devastating). “Us.” sounds a bit like Swift’s Big Red Machine collaboration Renegade as Abrams sings about “Babylon lovers” and asks “Do you regret the secret of us?” Swift herself is like a heartbreak guide to her faithful student, offering a few reflective lines as Abrams recovers from an older paramour.
As the album progresses, it’s clear that the more bubbly-sad side of Abrams’s music is her next level worth exploring. Moments like “Tough Love,” a Noah Kahan-esque ditty that has the singer choosing her friends over chasing “random men” has the type of dynamic sonic energy that Abrams could thrive in exploring more. No wonder fans had been begging her to release “Close to You” for years, the album’s closing track which she previewed on Instagram way back in 2017. For some time, Abrams made clear that she would not be releasing it since it didn’t fit her current sound, but the synth-pop boost is proof that not only could she have a song of the summer contender on her hands but also achieve the best of both musical worlds, much like her very famous mentor has. Regardless, The Secret of Us proves Abrams is setting the tone for a very long career and that she’s not in any danger of losing her prime placement on any sad girl summer playlist for a long, long time.
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