Name your debut the greatest album of all time, and you’ve handed the world a baseball bat and pointed at your own shins. Credit to Sophia Stel for the nerve, as her vibe has always really been “I don’t care.” But, musically, I trust she really does. This record, self-produced and her first full-length, mostly lands somewhere shy of the title, in a hallway of half-lit rooms. The songwriting is the star. Stel has a gift for the sideways confession, the line that sounds like a shrug and lands like a slap. “I Do” and “Now I’ve Got A Lot You Know” show a writer who knows exactly where the bruise is and presses it with a straight face. This is a distinct voice, and the album is stronger for how stubbornly it stays hers. Self-produced, A24-backed, and still unmistakably Sophia Stel.
But the production doesn’t always keep up. The autotune tidal wave and the glossy textures, which recall 070 Shake and underscores, sometimes sit on top of the songs instead of carrying them. A few hooks that should snap get softened into atmosphere. Some verses wander, some bridges point at an ending without building one, and a track or two runs out of road early. It’s the sound of a bigger canvas than she’s used to.
A tighter edit and a second pair of ears in the booth, and the next record could really earn that title.
