I’ve been a touch obsessed with Anna Shoemaker since she put out the gloriously intimate Change My Mind in December, together with its fabulous video. Now she is back with something a little different, in the form of Mariah.
Where Change My Mind felt like the kind of grimy and grounded indie that Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy might make, Mariah packs a more overtly commercial aesthetic. Warm bass notes gently unfold and bend slightly under the weight of the song as an 8-bit style rhythm clicks and bleeps, guitar adding a steely-eyed determination right before Shoemaker drops her chorus.
And what a chorus it is, for Shoemaker is becoming the queen of deadpan delivery… The emotion held back in the performance itself, and all the more resonant in the words Anna sings. Compared to Change My Mind, Mariah took a little while to sink its teeth into me, but I find myself a little more hooked on Anna’s tale of fire and gaslighting every time I hear it. The song is a haunting, beautiful, cinematic ode to being really fucking done.
Describing the release, Shoemaker says:
“This is a final straw song, the one where you borderline get in trouble for putting it out, so I figured if it sounds sweet, maybe no-one will notice how mad I am.”
Check out Mariah below: