{"id":156471,"date":"2026-04-27T12:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/?post_type=records&p=156471"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:12:09","slug":"grace-ives-girlfriend","status":"publish","type":"records","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/records\/grace-ives-girlfriend\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Ives – Girlfriend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On her third album, Grace Ives refines the personal-chaos narrative that defined Janky Star<\/em> into something sleeker yet no less intimate. Girlfriend<\/em> unfolds as a retelling of her life over the past few years \u2013 substances, complicated relationships, self-sabotage, and the disorienting promise of Los Angeles \u2013 coming together in her signature tilted, textured pop. Her hooks are as catchy and clear-cut as ever, while her production \u2013 still anchored in drum machines and sequencers \u2013 feels more deliberate than in past works. It\u2019s bedroom pop under a glaze of real-life experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opener, \u201cNow I\u2019m,\u201d arrives as a soft exhale. Built on acoustic guitar and a delicate vocal, it plays like a quiet inventory of the selves she\u2019s shed, feeling both peaceful and untethered. That calm is quickly destabilized by \u201cAvalanche,\u201d where her world begins to fracture. The track is sharper, more volatile; it gathers momentum through arpeggiated synths, a distorted bassline and ticking hi-hats. It is incredibly dynamic, with her voice soaring over top of the slightly panic-inducing arrangement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFire 2\u201d stands out as one of the album\u2019s most transportive moments. Starting with a muted club\/UKG beat, the song dissolves into a hazy pool of piano and strings, as if the song itself were melting into liquid. The glitchy, reversed backing vocals feel like an ode to FKA twigs’ ethereal pop. \u201cDrink Up\u201d and \u201cStupid Bitches\u201d tap into a vaporwave-adjacent vibe, existing as a sort of love child between Sky Ferreira and George Clanton \u2014 a blend of nostalgia, dreaminess and emotional depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album reaches its climax with \u201cMy Mans,\u201d a sweeping crescendo where her voice floats over a bed of aching strings. It\u2019s melodramatic, cinematic. It feels like an emotional release after an album spent going back and forth between detachment and confession. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girlfriend<\/em> doesn\u2019t offer resolution so much as it builds a beautiful world full of fairly typical 20-something experiences. She seamlessly creates a mood and feeling that stays with you, lingering like perfume on fabric: elusive, intimate, and unmistakably her own. It is cool-girl-pop in the truest sense; it doesn\u2019t abide by the rules of contemporary chart music, but rather prioritizes texture and personality over perfection. Ives embraces her flaws and failures as a kind of aesthetic principle, positioning herself in a different world from the hyper-curated \u201cclean girl\u201d monoculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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