Photo credit: Alex Martinez
Based in Seattle, Elliott Green’s Bandcamp page simply states ‘I write sad songs’ and she lives up to this statement on new album ‘Everything I Lack’ – out on Count Your Lucky Stars Records on 27 January.
Haunting piano tones and atmospheric feedback swathe around the opener ‘Friendly Advice’ – a tender piece that finds Elliott pleading ‘I want to feel something, I don’t wanna feel so alone’. ‘Second Try’ follows in equally refrained style with Elliott’s vocals filling in the space left by the restrained guitar work. Sprinkles of enchanted synth add a delicacy to the latter stages as the lyrics look back on a lost love and recall sleeping on couches. There’s also a powerful fragility on show in ‘Referee’ as Elliott struggles to find her place and takes aim at body shaming: ‘The person that I was before wasn’t me’; ‘I’ve been a stranger in a costume’.
‘Consolation’ has a DIY feel as Elliott talks about loneliness, despair and the fact ‘no holy water is gonna make me clean’ while ‘Goodness’ has a Jeff Buckley-style opening that morphs into something more akin to twinkly emo a la American Football. ‘Separate Beds’ also has some underlying mathy moments with subtle strings and heartbreaking lyrics: ‘I wanted to believe that things were right for once in my life’. Penultimate song ‘Boxer’ did remind us of the band who have the album of the same name as it quietly pulls a poignant punch (the emotion in the delivery of ‘That’s not what you get’) while the closing ‘Final Recap’ has a tape deck running in the background as Elliott recalls the feelings that come to the surface when a relationship has run its course – and how it subsequently feels when you see that partner with someone new: ‘I only wish you hadn’t dragged it out’; ‘Baby, go have fun, go on and meet someone’.
‘Everything I Lack’ is a soul-searching selection of songs that are anything but lacking…
