Gracie Abrams’ sophomore album, The Secret of Us, shows a progression from bedroom-pop girlie to fully-fledged pop icon, following her rise to stardom coinciding with opening for Taylor Swift for Leg One of the record-destroying Eras Tour.
After a nostalgia-filled debut EP Minor and the folk-pop, Folklore-esque This Is What It Feels Like, her debut full-length album Good Riddance showed a real sonic progression, working with the iconic Aaron Dessner, but stayed true to her sad-girl roots.
The Secret of Us has more than a few traces of this still, from “I Knew It, I Know You”s “Long Sleeves”-esque outro to the hauntingly beautiful “Good Luck Charlie”, as well as my personal highlight: “I Love You, I’m Sorry”, a clear call-back to a single from her debut EP, which was entitled “I Miss You, I’m Sorry”.
However, she breaks free from this in songs such as the energetic “Blowing Smoke” and, of course, “Close To You”, included as a footnote to the track listing seven years after she first wrote the song.
The album is more bubbly than her previous work, with even the first single from the album, “Risk”, having a definite energy that has rarely been found in her discography to date.
However, the album falls relatively short with its lyrics – unlike the deeply introspective “Long Sleeves”, “Best” or “For Real This Time” from previous records, the lyrics feel more surface-level in her latest work.
This is a phenomenon that seems to follow the current trend of similar artists: Olivia Rodrigo’s “Bad Idea Right” and Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” are probably good examples of this – excellent songwriters that are writing for a larger audience than ever before.
Some of her lines feel slightly ‘dumbed-down’ for a wider audience – and while maybe this is an attempt to use the momentum of the Eras Tour to expand her stardom as much as possible, it is a shame, as she doesn’t reach the levels of lyrical complexity that she is intensely capable of reaching.
Nevertheless, her collaboration with Taylor Swift, “us”, does certainly reach that – the pre-chorus is classic folklorian Swift, with beautifully layered vocals professing: ‘That night, you were talking false prophets and profits / They make in the margins of poetry sonnets / You never read up on it, shame, could’ve learned something.’
This is what I’d have loved to see Abrams explore to a greater extent on this record, although I can absolutely understand the commercial reasons for not doing so.
Despite the lyricism not necessarily following the same trajectory, Abrams has, sonically, consistently followed a path across her career, with The Secret of Us almost perfectly fitting what I felt it would sound like after her previous work.
I feel that, at this time in her career, she can’t necessarily be marked down for some relatively surface-level lyricism, but she can certainly be marked up on a unique sound that is more complex than ever before, while staying true to her roots.
The Secret of Us could take Gracie Abrams a long way.
8/10
