Gracie Abrams Takes Her Sad-Girl Pop to the Next Level in 'The Secret of Us'

Above the last one Four years in, Gracie Abrams has soared to the top of every sad girl's summer list. Her EP That's how it feels and last year's debut album Good riddance helped put her on the map, while laying the groundwork for a fruitful collaborative partnership with Aaron Dessner. After a summer that opened for Taylor Swift's Eras tour and landed a Best New Artist Grammy nomination under her belt, Abrams' songwriting is more evocative and grown-up than ever, as heard on her sophomore album Our secret.

The folky-pop LP is a fitting showcase for Abrams' songwriting, sharpening some of the clichés and teenage metaphors from her debut. The songs are a complex picture of a broken relationship, full of heartbreaking songs that capture the messiness of dating in your early twenties. Along with Dessner, Abrams co-wrote many of the songs with her best friend Audrey Hobert. Many of the lyrics are as much an open letter to an ex as they are a text that conveys your deepest, darkest secrets to your closest confidante in the middle of a sleepless night.

Our secret opens with the buzzy track “Felt Good About You,” a song that might as well be the album's thesis: “Felt good about you till I did not/Fell hard then I lost your interest,” he sings halfway through the song . Along with lead single “Risk,” the LP's opener makes a good case for Abrams' pop sensibilities, transforming her often intimate, understated sound into something more catchy, melodic, and bubbly.

Still, Abrams' musical comfort zone is when it's at its most devastating and brooding. “Blowing Smoke” finds her unable to erase the image of an ex with a new girlfriend, saying how beautiful and cool she can be. Her duet with Taylor Swift also delivers, especially as Track Five on the album is very apt. (All Swiftie scholars know that a Track Five on a Swift album is usually the most emotionally devastating). “Us.” sounds a bit like Swift's collaboration on Big Red Machine, Renegade, as Abrams sings about “Babylon lovers” and asks “Have you repented of our secret?” Swift herself serves as a heartbreaking guide for her loyal student, offering some reflective lines as Abrams recovers from an aging paraplegia.

As the album progresses, it's clear that the sadder side of Abrams' music is her next level worth exploring. Moments like “Tough Love,” a Noah Kahan track that has the singer choosing her friends instead of chasing “random men” have the type of dynamic sonic energy that Abrams could have thrived on exploring more. It's no wonder fans have been begging her to release “Close to You” for years, the album's final track which she previewed on Instagram in 2017. For some time, Abrams made it clear she wouldn't release it after she didn't It suited her current sound, but the synth-pop thrust is proof that she could not only have a Song of the Summer contender on her hands, but also achieve the best of both musical worlds, just like the very famous her mentor. Regardless, Our secret proves that Abrams is setting the tone for a very long career, and that she's in no danger of losing her prime spot on any sad-girl summer playlist for a long, long time.

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