Catherine Kwon

Society has long moved past ripped jeans and pole-sitting as the core tenets of youth culture. Who needs those when 40 minutes of music can do the trick? Each issue, this column will explore the intersection between the youth experience and a brand new album.

Throughout indie singer Samia (Samia Najimy Finnerty)’s sophomore album, Honey, we meet what feels like dozens of characters. Amelia’s the one with the half smile. Caleb—he’s by the fire pit, scaling the beyond. Everything with David is totally fine. These are brief, lyrical introductions that leave the listener with no more than one or two details. In the album’s tight 40-minute runtime, particulars like these offer us a fleeting glimpse into Samia’s world.

These “who’s who” moments make Honey both a profound piece of sonic storytelling and a narrow look into Samia’s individual experience. She has been honing her indie-pop craft since breaking out in 2017 with a string of standalone singles including “Welcome to Eden.” She has since earned a reputation among indie listeners as an powerful alternative vocalist with a penchant for poetic lyrics and catchy melodies. (Find her sandwiched between acts like Lucy Dacus and Soccer Mommy on any algorithmic Spotify Indie playlist.) On Honey, Samia gets personal, but she loses the audience a little on the way. After all, as relatable as the circumstance might be, we’ll never know exactly what Amelia, Caleb, or David are supposed to mean to us.

Samia shines on Honey when she addresses her intimate—yet relatable—experience as a twenty-something navigating heartbreak, growing pains, and newfound freedom. In the opening track, “Kill Her Freak Out,” Samia croons about love lost over a bare-bones synth pad progression. She doesn’t need intricate instrumentation to hammer home the severity of her sentiment: “I hope you marry the girl from your hometown, and I’ll fucking kill her, and I’ll fucking freak out,” she recites calmly. Samia gives voice to the passionate anguish familiar to any young victim of heartache.

On the flip side, Samia estranges her audience in the hyperspecificity of songs like “Pink Balloon.” In the album’s vinyl notes, she describes the song as an ode to the complex nature of close friendships: “I wanted to tell [the story of a friendship that got too close and complicated] from a bird’s eye perspective… Even when you think you know someone really well you only have your vantage point.” But ultimately, she leans too heavily into her own “vantage point,” hindering the listener’s ability to access the experience that she’s trying to capture. Extraneous details about Los Angeles family dinners and the nerves that Samia gets during a full moon leave the artist’s exact meaning unclear. Especially when placed atop a backdrop of spare piano balladry, the song leaves the listener with little to grab onto beyond a pretty melody. What could have been a painfully relatable serenade is little more than a wash of particulars.

A rousing instrumental palette lifts the album out of the occasional lyrical rut. Tracks like “Mad at Me,” an early album single featuring Minneapolis-based artist papa mbye, best showcase the depths of Samia’s sonic experimentation. “Mad at Me” places the artist into unfamiliar territory—glitch-pop drums with pulsating bass grooves and shimmering synth keys are a departure from her typical guitar-driven indie sound. She deftly croons over the danceable syncopation which culminates in one of the catchiest hooks of the year. “Are you still,” she begins, wailing over choppy snares and watery guitars, “mad at me?” The song, which leans on modern references (“Clear the cache, watch your feet, keep going”), has equally contemporary instrumentation to back it up.

Samia’s softer serenading and her pop-infused grooves intersect in “Sea Lions.” The track begins as a tranquil piano number, reeling in listeners with low-filtered keys and spare atmospheric pads. But the composition begins to morph as listeners advance through the five-minute runtime. A quiet wave of crunchy synth risers provides the audience’s final warning before a shout—“Why does your phone keep going to voicemail?” A cascade of instruments floods the mix. Plucky bass groves, glitched-out synth brass elements, staccato percussion, and reverb-soaked swells fall on the listener all at once, giving the entire album a necessary halftime kick. In moments like these, it doesn’t matter whether you understand Samia’s niche, autobiographical references or not. She lets the music carry the emotional weight.

Perhaps the ethos of Honey is best summed up in the chant that Samia sings at the end of the title track: “It’s all honey, honey.” Her tone dances between cathartic and sarcastic as she repeats the phrase 18 times. After so many minutes spent parsing heartbreak, disappointment, and emotional strain, it’s challenging for listeners to take her at her word; however, countless repetitions of the phrase begin to unveil new meanings. It seems that all the long nights and turmoil that have comprised Samia’s youth thus far have culminated in something messy, sweet, and tough to swallow. Over the course of 11 tracks, the album’s characters, places, and names flow into a glossy, fluid image of youth. Even if we haven’t lived Samia’s life and can’t understand every reference she makes, we can agree: It’s all honey, honey.

MORRIS RASKIN