Gena Rose Bruce comes up gleaming with new album ‘Deep Is The Way’
“It sounds funny to say now, but I felt like I wasn’t really good at anything,” says Gena Rose Bruce, remembering being somewhere 50 miles below rock bottom back in 2020. The Melbourne singer-songwriter spent the year before lockdown capitalising on the success of her 2019 debut, Can’t Make You Love Me, only for everything to fall apart. Housebound with a grieving partner, Bruce became increasingly introspective, eventually breaking out of her shell to craft this stunning selection of imaginative, nuanced and highly confessional tracks.
Like most lockdown albums, Deep Is The Way is stitched to the context in which it was created. It carries all the hallmarks of a Covid-era release, slowly unravelling itself in successive waves of whispered vocals, close-miked piano and diaristic monologue. That isn’t necessarily a criticism. Bruce really is top dog when it comes to this sort of thing, and she doesn’t once give in to the naval-gazing that has come to define the Covid-canon.
Deep Is The Way begins with a revelation. ‘Future’ sees Bruce throw off the fog of melancholy and march towards a new day, arms wide. Despite her career being at a complete standstill, she continued to forge collaborations, meeting with fellow singer-songwriter Bill Callahan – with whom she wrote ‘Deep Is The Way’ and ‘Foolishly In Love’ – and reconnecting with former collaborator Tim Harvey. “I knew working with Tim again would give us a chance to deepen that creative relationship so we could create something even more special,” she says.
The new album provided Bruce with a sense of purpose where there had previously been nothing but doubt and self-loathing. Having spent the last few months growing increasingly anxious, introverted and hostile, she began rising at dawn, when the stars could still be seen glinting in the brightening sky. “I really connected with the idea that stars are the people we’ve lost looking over us,” says Bruce. “You see that there’s so much beauty still left. You’re awake and you’ve got this whole day, this whole life ahead of you.”
At that point, she was reaching for something she couldn’t quite place, but as more songs came, so too came the realisation that she had failed the people closest to her, having let the claustrophobia of lockdown life get the better of her relationship. In ‘I’m Not Made to Only Love You’, a jazz-tinged dialogue wrapped around a warm pedal note, Bruce questions her commitment to her long-term partner while fantasising about the heady thrill of a new romance. “I was asking myself: ‘am I meant for one sort of relationship?’,” says Bruce. “I think it’s an important question to ask, to really just have a frank conversation about those feelings.”
It’s this battle between level-headedness and raw emotion that makes ‘Deep is The Way’ such a rewarding listen. A mirror and a vessel, it reflects anxieties we’ve all come to know since lockdown while making them seem navigable. At times, Bruce seems utterly lost. Other times she seems on the cusp of a grand unifying theory. Either way, she’s always upfront about her failings, using a diverse palette of searing synths, creaking pianos and lush guitars to rejuvenate her sense of self and ours.
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