Meg Duffy's vocals shift from hushed intimacy to bold, commanding delivery across Blue Reminder. The opener "More Today" moves from murmured strums to electric guitar, Wurlitzer and drums, culminating in a climactic cry: "I want it all or nothing." Much of the album was written after falling in love, producing quiet awe and awareness of love's fragility. Songs like "Dead Rat" and "Bluebird of Happiness" pair tender lines with gentle keys and propulsive beats. The title track confesses fear of loss and determination to prove love. Past heartbreak resurfaces on "Way It Goes," which sounds woozy and warped. The midsection of "Way It Goes" is haunted by a wash.
Three-quarters of the way through Hand Habits ' 2021 album , Meg Duffy let loose an unexpected wail on "Concrete & Feathers," their voice twisting to an anguished howl. On their first few releases, Duffy had mostly sung in a hushed voice over intimate, introspective indie rock. But on their third album, they took bolder turns, occasionally bursting into instrumental catharsis-and pushing their singing to newly commanding territory.
Duffy doesn't make you wait until the final stretch of Blue Reminder, Hand Habits' latest record, to hear their voice reach such emotional depths. Opener "More Today" begins with a murmur: Duffy's soft singing over gentle strums; then the crunch of electric guitar, Wurlitzer, drums. Eventually, the instrumentation quiets, making way for Duffy's clear, strong voice: "I want it all or nothing," they cry at the song's climax-like a starting gun for their most sure-footed, adventurous collection of songs to date.
It would perhaps be too easy to pin this newfound confidence on one specific source-namely, that Duffy wrote much of the album after falling in love. But here, love doesn't inspire grand declarations so much as quiet awe: "I want to wake you up/And tell you how I love you," they murmur over a gentle brush of keys on "Dead Rat." "Loneliness has disappeared," they realize over the propulsive beat of "Bluebird of Happiness"; "I never thought I'd see the day."
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