Gretel announces debut album ‘Squish’ with pleasant title track
London-based indie artist Gretel has announced the long-awaited debut album, Squish, slated for an April 10th release, with the solid, if a little safe, title track.
On ‘Squish’, Gretel lends her alluring, husky voice to two halves of a forward-pummelling track. The first half meanders, lamenting modern dating culture and the distance of the digital age, the disaffection echoed in her own dreary recollections.
The track, recorded with a live five-piece band, sputters into gear with a jilted pace change, a ceremonial whiplash. “All I wanna do is just drown in love and let you squish me,” Gretel insists, above the geared-up indie-rock backing. The kind of indie-rock that wouldn’t go amiss in Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging.
Gretel burst onto the scene at the tender age of 18, and her confessional lyricism has only improved, racing through sharp sequiturs like “If I’m alive, then I’m a liar,” bursting forth with a smearing takedown on the London scene of symbolics, where appearances speak louder than words.
Of the album’s opening single, Gretel has shared: “It’s not about any one thing. It’s all the things that press down on you over time to make this uncomfortable, deformed desire inside. I feel like I always have that desire in me – it’s in this curious place between what the world pushes onto you and what it squeezes out of you.”
So far, three other tracks from Squish have been released. The spunky-sprechgesang ‘Maybelline’ boasts impressive, alarming guitars, and the whirling, expansive ‘Unbloom’ is littered with feedback and a grunge affectation. ‘Darkness, be my friend’ is as melancholic as its namesake suggests.
In comparison to the new release, the first two fare better in her discography. As an opener, ‘Squish’ promises great things for the full-length release. As a stand-alone track, it’s pleasant, like a gentle rap on the door to let your friends know you’re waiting outside. Perhaps breaking down the door altogether might’ve been a better entrance. Gretel’s certainly got it in her.
Squish is slated for an April 10th release via Breadcrumb Records / AWAL.
Gretel – Squish tracklist:
- ‘Squish’
- ‘Fire Blooming Trees’
- ‘Maybelline’
- ‘Unbloom’
- ‘Laurali’
- ‘Drunk on the ballroom floor’
- ‘Darkness, be my friend’
- ‘Pick your heart up’
- ‘Oh Well’
- ‘Witch hunt’
- ‘Nervous driver’
- ‘The perfect body’
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