Recommended tracks: “Carousel,” “Bovine Excision,” “Pants,” “Proof”
Artists you may like: Maggie Rogers, Clairo, Dora Jar
Building up the strength to embark on a rocky yet overdue journey of finding a sense of self, Samia, a Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter, explores introspective themes on her third album, Bloodless. Through raw storytelling and a niche for honesty, Samia doesn’t let anything stop her from telling her story just the way it is. She invites chaos, transformative sounds and compelling lyrics into her musical world to make it her own with the help of North Carolina-based producer Caleb Wright and Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus. This multi-layered album excels at all levels, offering a refreshing, sincere new piece of art to the music world.
The opening track, “Biscuits Intro,” introduces an eerie, yet comforting rustic sound that, just as soon as you hit play, cuts out with a radio static. A sense of unpredictability and confusion fills the air as the acoustic strumming of “Bovine Excision” carries you into an intimate world that hides deep under the surface. The haunting imagery of cattle mutilation and being drained of blood are imperative for Samia to voice her all-encompassing craving to be impossible and untouchable, a state of being that she’s never known but is aware of.
Absence is powerful—it can make you bigger or more worthy of occupying space in someone’s head without the worry of your power-hungry, answer-seeking presence tearing down a glorified yet satisfactory image of yourself. “Hole In A Frame” introduces absence as a way to grow and shape yourself into a figment, an idea that can help you come to terms with how people perceive you. If they can’t get to know you, the mystery will consume your true self.
“It’s a beautiful party, and it’s not mine to ruin / Don’t do it,” Samia repeats to herself in the upbeat, synth-heavy track “Lizard.” With the fear of your own presence ruining something that you’ve already invaded, the desire to shrink back into the void is louder than ever. No one wants to bear the selfishness of being a burden. After being driven by the need to appease men, as she does God, for the past two decades of her life, Samia explores the reality of seeing these figures as the predictors of her fate, looking to them for answers so she doesn’t have to bear the responsibility of making her own decisions.
The album’s pace slows down with “Dare” and “Fair Game,” which are two vulnerable, well-told stories of sharing a sense of understanding and finding fairness in accepting contrasting versions of yourself. However, in the next track, “Spine Oil,” Samia seems to wrap these identity-shaping stories in a tight bow and use them as fuel to spark a confrontation. With the lyrics, “You’ve mistaken my joy for weakness / Baby your mistake, you’re mistaken / It won’t go down easily,” Samia isn’t afraid to show her teeth in order to protect the belief in her own potential and her own personal strength.
Although confrontation may feel like it solved everything in the moment, the walls and boundaries you’ve built can crumble at any second, no matter how strong or scary you’ve tried to make them. In “Craziest Person in the Room,” Samia admits that she seeks distraction in order to escape her own decisions with the lyrics, “I’d rather hear someone else’s problems than worry about what I’m supposed to do / What am I supposed to do?”
The complexities found in the corners of life never seem to disappear, but rather are slowly uncovered each day, making you question if you’re the problem. The next track, “Sacred,” explores how the space someone occupies with hatred for you is bigger than the one filled with love ever was. “Carousel” continues the self-problematic theme with a haunting sound that turns into a full-blown, electric and drum-heavy outro that seems to categorize the frustration with the cyclical nature of destructive tendencies. The captivating metaphor-heavy lyrics carry this song’s introspective message with power: “I’ve been rubbing together bramble / I wanna hitch my fire to your candle.”
With just her voice and a simple strum of an acoustic guitar, Samia stops the momentum of the album to make a confession that usually is danced around to keep relationships afloat—the idea that no one truly knows the real you. In “Proof,” Samia admits, “But you don’t know me bitch / You don’t know me bitch,” letting the pain and heaviness of this reality speak for itself. “North Poles” picks up the beat again, inviting in an intriguing concept of finding someone so similar to you, a north pole magnet that theoretically can’t attract your north pole magnet, but somehow discovering that you need them in order to feel complete.
The last track on the album, “Pants,” ties in the album’s themes into one, touching on existentialism, sense of self, vulnerability and desire to please. Although it’s presented as one six-minute song, it is more like three sonically and thematically different pieces that intertwine to create chaos with a purpose. Sometimes the truth is too hidden to make complete sense of it. There’s no sense in twisting it into something it’s not.
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